The run of Hamlet at the Young Vic theatre earlier this year has been widely condemned by critics, some of whom were as cruel as to announce that ‘Michael Sheen could be right up there among the great Hamlets but director Ian Rickson’s gimmicky production is a disaster’ (Charles Spencer, The Telegraph) and that ‘I have never left a production of Hamlet feeling as irritated and cheated’. In fact, all that reviewers seem able to agree on is that it was a horrible idea but that Michael Sheen was brilliant, a compliment for him at least. I would argue that not only was Michael Sheen br

This collection of essays provides a long overdue critical examination of perhaps the most divisive contributor to contemporary literature.