To see or not to see? That is no question

I know what I will do on 16 October 2015 from 7:15pm. I will be sitting in the first row of the Barbican Theatre in London and watching Benedict Cumberbatch play Hamlet. This will be a trip of a lifetime and in the coming year I will keep you posted on the preparation of this London theatre weekend.

Tickets went on sale on 10 August 2014 (although priority booking for Barbican members opened on 1 August) and they were sold out within hours for all performances between 5 August–31 October 2015. This means around 100,000 tickets! A spokesman for ticket website Viagogo said: "Cumberbatch’s Hamlet has stolen the title of the most in-demand theatre show of all time, with ticket searches going through the roof." What is the secret? Why is this play so popular?

At this point, we only now two things about the performance: Hamlet will be played by Benedict Cumberbatch and the director will be Lyndsey Turner. There is a rumour that Gary Oldman might play Claudius although this has not been confirmed – in fact, no further details on the cast have been released to this date. And although in theatre reviews Lyndsey Turner is called a genius and a director of "dazzling gifts" we can safely say that wider audiences purchased those tickets because of Benedict Cumberbatch.

There are two types of people in my experience: the ones who know Benedict and simply adore him, and others who have not heard of him and do not understand this craze. For the sake of the second group, let’s see who is he? Most of us Hungarians first met him playing Sherlock Holmes alongside Martin Freeman (Dr Watson) in the highly successful and Emmy-winning BBC series Sherlock. This programme became extremely popular, there is even a website called Sherlockology, "The ultimate guide for any BBC Sherlock fan" (https://www.sherlockology.com/), their Facebook-page has almost 800,000 followers. The series is indeed amazing, fresh, modern, funny, with spectacular picture and fantastic actors. We started to watch out for Cumberbatch, this cool and very talented actor. Since then we have seen him in several films including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Star Trek Into Darkness, 12 Years a Slave, just to name a few of the most famous ones. But we could also see him on stage, thanks to the series National Theatre Live (in Hungary, you can see these performances in the Uránia Filmszínház, www.urania-nf.hu, the website is also available in English). Frankenstein was put to stage in the National Theatre by Danny Boyle (the director of 127 Hours, Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting and also the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games) and Uránia has shown the recording of this show several times in the past two years due to the very high demand. A unique feature of this performance is that the main actors, Benedict Cumberbatch and Johnny Lee Miller alternate their roles of Frankenstein and the Creature. 

The show is based on Mary Shelley’s novel Frankenstein, modernised and highlighting questions still valid today (Do we have the right to play God? If we bring a new life into the world, are we allowed to leave it to its own devices? Who are the real monsters in today’s world?). Danny Boyle, true to his traditions as a film director, puts on stage a very spectacular show, with amazing effects and a very clever set. You can see this performance with both casting again in Uránia in December, it is definitely worth watching (this will be my 4th and 5th time watching). 

So, after watching him excel over and over again, it is inevitable that his fans should go crazy to see him on stage, to see this talent live. And I am lucky enough to lay my hands on some tickets for Hamlet, so I can check him out for myself. From the first row. Jealous? You should be...

P.S.: There is still hope for those who want to see Hamlet in London. The Barbican Theatre is holding back 100 tickets for each performance at £10 per piece which will be released in 2015.