Hamlet is typically seen as the epitome of a serious play: visualise it on stage and you’re probably imagining a sober black-clad prince, clutching a skull and brooding miserably on his own mortality ...

When you think about it, Gertrude and Claudius — the “villains” of Hamlet — really don’t talk to each other much in Shakespeare’s masterpiece. “Gertrude and Claudius have very few lines together,” ...