The royal court of Denmark is a nasty place, just how nasty we are going to find out. It has been put together by Hamlet’s dad the former king, while he was alive, and in Chapter 1, the opening party, various characters are introduced. We see the scheming femme fatal Polonia stuffing her sister Ophelia full of drugs, Rosencrantz murdering a serving girl for the hell of it and of course The Ghost.

His first action on appearing to his son (Hamlet) isn’t a reassuring hug but rather he beats him up and then intimidates him to take action against his murderer – his rather “nice” brother Claudius the king. All in a days work for a vicious tyrant!