Though the title almost does all the explaining you’ll ever need, to spell it out in a full sentence Grand Theft Hamlet is an attempt to stage the Shakespeare play Hamlet inside the online version of Grand Theft Auto.
The background. It’s the third Covid lockdown in the UK and husband and wife Sam Crane, a theatre director, and Pinny Grylls, a documentary maker, are suddenly workless and at home cooling their heels. He’s a bit of a console jockey. She isn’t. Inspired by a comment from their kids about a YouTube gamer going by Dream (31.9 million subscribers as I type) who’s been staging performances inside Minecraft, they wonder if they can take it one step further and crash two competing forms of culture – theatre and gaming – together and make a documentary about it.
The thing about GTA, though, is that it’s a multiplayer gamer, with driving and shooting, plus roleplay, at its core. The roleplay slots right in to what Grylls and Crane are about to attempt, but what about the driving and shooting?
The entirely fascinating results of this conceptually brilliant experiment hinge on that fundamental challenge. As someone steps forward to deliver their deathless version of the “To be or not to be” speech, how to stop some random new player arriving and killing them, which is what the game is all about, after all?
For the most part the gameplay features sofa-bound Crane and old gamer buddy Mark Oosterveen coming up with the idea of doing Hamlet inside GTA – “… a terrible idea. I definitely think we should try and do it,” says Mark. And then trying to hold auditions and stage rehearsals – more “Don’t shoot me!” moments.
People/players/their avatars start turning up. One is a green alien, another is a trans person who, we learn, is a trans person in real life too. Some people stay, some don’t. Some are intrigued by the notion of pushing GTA beyond its envelope, others are happy enough with GTA as it is, thanks.
There’s been a massive amount of editing done to create the semblance of a fluid flow, but even so the flow is not that fluid and that’s all part of the jerky fun of it. As little scenes from Hamlet are tried out, we’re on an airship miles above the earth. We’re in a subterranean car park. We’re on a beach in the rain. In a version of the Hollywood Bowl called the Vinewood Bowl, where some of the more coherent performances are worked out in rehearsal by avatars with the twitchy bearing of bouncers ready for a fight.
We only get bits of Hamlet, snatches from scenes. If you’re not big on Shakespeare you needn’t worry. And the juxtaposition is choice – King Claudius vaulting on to the stage at one point and killing everyone. An attempt at the play’s gentle opening scene – Francisco: “Have you had quiet guard?” Bernardo: “Not a mouse stirring.” – while players are shooting each other with guns. Then the cops turn up in a helicopter. It’s chaotic.
In the background, offscreen, daily life continues. People go to the toilet, Mark talks about the funeral he’s just been to, a small domestic argument (possibly staged?) sparks off.
The total impression is of herding cats. Making impassioned speeches while someone is lunging at you with a knife. Or doing Hamlet with someone else who wants to do Harry Potter. But from all the chaos a few things emerge. How well some people deliver Shakespeare’s lines. How adaptable a game like this can be, doing things no developer ever envisaged. How massively collaborative this sort of gaming is. If you’re like me and have never indulged in multiplayer gaming, this is an eye-opener and goes against the perceived impression of a solitary activity for people with no friends.
Lots of people die in Hamlet, it’s worth remembering, so doing it in a shoot-’em-up setting does make some sense. Does the experiment to stage Hamlet inside GTA really work? Not really, but watching them all try is what makes this so gripping. It is, to borrow a line from the play, “a hit, a very palpable hit”.
Grand Theft Hamlet – Watch it/buy it at Amazon
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© Steve Morrissey 2025
