Second-year journalism student Rohan Coleman reviews Grand Theft Hamlet,
a documentary that blends theatre and gaming in an innovative response to the Covid lockdowns.
How two British actors transformed a video game into a stage, bringing Shakespeare to the digital age.
What comes to your mind first then you think of the video game Grand Theft Auto? Guns, violence, and now…Shakespearean soliloquies? British actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, alongside documentary maker Pinny Grylls and a handful of enthusiastic, budding actors literally change the game in the documentary feature ‘Grand Theft Hamlet’, a love letter to theatre, and a beautiful display of the resilience of artists. The feature was the recipient of the Best Debut Director award at the 2024 British Independent Film Awards, alongside the SXSW Grand Jury Prize.
Locked down but not out: Theatre’s fight for survival
As we can all bitterly remember, the Covid lockdowns throughout 2020 and 2021 put the world on pause. While in retrospect, some of us may have been grateful for some extra time to ourselves, the reality of the situation is sometimes forgotten. Countless jobs were permanently lost, and self-employed people had to quickly come up with a solution to their financial void, while also finding activities to fill their newfound spare time. This was the case for theatre actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, who made a living reciting Shakespearean poetry and prose night after night on stages across Britain. While the arts is already an industry losing artists daily, this unimaginable disruption to performance art was a strike nobody could prepare for. However, while live performances were inaccessible, this never meant game over for theatre actors. This incredibly unique and wonderfully daring documentary showcases the inability of artists to be discouraged.
As plenty of us can relate, Crane and Oosterveen took to online video games as a way to pass the seemingly endless time we had at home, spending hours roaming digital streets, and connecting to whoever you can find online. But for performers who dedicate their lives to learning lines, memorising stage directions and perfecting accents, this supposedly infinite amount of downtime quickly became unbearable. Performers and audiences alike felt the loss of theatre like a phantom limb, longing for the day the curtain would open once more. That waiting period was forced to an end, when Crane and Oosterveen had officially had enough, and decided to take matters into their own hands. The pair decided to put on a live performance of Hamlet within the online forums of Grand Theft Auto. What initially started as a fun idea to joke about, became the pair’s sole focus, day in and day out.
From pixels to performances: Building Grand Theft Hamlet
Following the transition from a potentially cool idea to a feasible project, the pair jumped into action, posting promotional videos online spreading their idea and calling for auditions. What began as a minimal response slowly turned into an influx of players messaging the actors for more information. What follows is a heartwarming display of the power of performance and literature, with several wonderful stories coming from real-life people – book lovers who may never have a chance to perform on stage, people struggling with the seemingly unending lockdown, and professional artists reduced to their own four walls – all of which feature in a beautiful audition segment. As well as ordinary people getting to try their hand at soliloquies and monologues, the pair also caught the attention of Jen Cohn, an actress best known for voicing Pharah in the acclaimed videogame Overwatch.
As the newly formed team gets to work on crafting this play, various obstacles pop up, threatening to extinguish their dream. Such challenges include scheduling issues, especially as the lockdowns began to ease in the UK in 2021, as well as a variety of personal problems, particularly in Sam Crane’s case. The lead actor shared frustrations with feeling lost, an unavoidable sense of doubt and hopelessness hanging over his every thought about his future as an actor. Crane’s wife and co-director of the documentary, Pinny Grylls expressed her frustrations with Crane, highlighting the effects his melancholy was having on their relationship, and their children’s lives, mentioning how she only feels she can connect with him through the video game. These insights into the creator’s thought processes and personal lives throughout bringing this project to life enhanced the film incredibly, allowing us to connect with the players deeply, making the final product all the more moving.
Beyond the screen: The real struggles behind the stage
However, these issues featured in the film are not the only barriers faced by the Grand Theft Hamlet team during the production and distribution of their film. Co-director Pinny Grylls shares some of the challenges that viewers did not get to witness, recounting how “The most difficult thing is probably finding the energy and stamina to keep going without support for a very long time – believe it or not we were very much ignored by the filmmaking and theatre community when doing this project – we struggled to get financial help until the very end. Most people are followers – and will only help you when everybody else says what you are doing is good – you have to find people who trust their instincts about you and back you from the beginning – they are hard to find but they do exist”.
Through thick and thin, good and bad, we see this makeshift family support each other’s acting chops and find solutions to every problem that pops up, no matter how uncertain the solutions may be. In what is undoubtedly one of the most inspiring and creative film endeavours in recent filmmaking, Grand Theft Hamlet captures and celebrates the unstoppable fight of the arts community. This hilarious and awe-inspiring documentary pushes artists to keep moving towards their dreams and take control when others don’t support their vision.