From the Royal Shakespeare Company -- a fresh new edition of Shakespeare's most celebrated play. This book includes: * An introduction to Hamlet by award-winning scholar Jonathan Bate * The play -- with clear explanatory notes on each page * A scene-by-scene analysis * An introduction to Shakespeare's career and the Elizabethan theatre * A rich exploration of approaches to staging Hamlet The most enjoyable way to understand a Shakespeare play is to see it or participate in it. This book presents a historical overview of Hamlet in performance, recommends film versions, takes a detailed look at specific productions and includes interviews with three leading Directors -- Michael Boyd, Ron Daniels and John Caird -- so that we may get a sense of the extraordinary variety of interpretations that are possible - a variety that gives Shakespeare his unique capacity to be reinvented and made 'our contemporary' four centuries after his death.