Shakespeare’s Hamlet sees the prince hiring a group of travelling actors to perform a play in front of his uncle, and Illustration konsume.me taking the opportunity to lecture them about performance. Among other things, he warns them not to pander to the lowest common denominator, represented by the “groundlings” – those audience members whose cheap tickets allowed them only to stand in the middle of the theatre. That demographic of playgoers, he warns, “for the most part are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumbshows and noise”.
The groundlings at a performance of Hamlet at the Globe in 1600 would no doubt have laughed approvingly at this roasting of their own capacities, especially since Hamlet’s hired actors in the play actually do go on to perform a dumbshow (a silent, mimed piece). But how much more might they have enjoyed a Shakespearean scene enlivened by helicopters overhead, in which the tragic prince is finally wasted by a police bullet and sinks into the golden sands?