I hate to break it to you, but it's already too late if you want to see Tom Hiddleston perform in what's being described as one of the saddest adaptations of Hamlet ever. Specifically, The Guardian reports that the show is being described as "grief Hamlet," and also "HiddleHamlet," but you can call it whatever you want, because it's already sold out. The Shakespeare play, directed by Harry Potter's Kenneth Branagh, debuts today in London, and less than 4,000 people will get to see it.
Staged in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art's 160-seat Jerwood Vanbrugh theater, the performance has just a three-week run and only sold tickets via a lottery to raise money for the Academy.
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"What is exciting is to have a fundraiser which is also about the art," said Academy director Edward Kemp. "Sometimes it is about how can we extract as much cash from people as possible… What has been thrilling about this is how do we do something which raises money for Rada and serves the values that we and the Kenneth Branagh theatre company stand for? It is piece of art, not just a big old gala."
It also has the added bonus of starring Hiddleston, whom Branagh had been trying to recruit for the past ten years. Their schedules just never lined up until now, and Hiddleston has come aboard and added more emotion to the play than it seems anyone knew was possible.
"More than other Hamlets I’ve seen recently I would say it is a play about grief," Kemp, who has managed to see the play before its debut, revealed. "Someone said to me last night this is the 'grief Hamlet.'"
But is the play as sad as we feel about the fact that we'll never see it? I guess we'll never know.