It’s not often you go to the bar during the interval of a play and overhear Ewan McGregor asking his friend if “that was a real baby that Hamlet just carried on stage”. Yet in a production of Shakespeare as unorthodox as the Factory’s, people are bound to get confused. It was indeed a genuine newborn, plucked from its mother’s arms, though it must be said she looked delighted.
He might be a veteran actor, and on a night off from starring in Othello across town, but McGregor is as surprised as any other audience member by the turn of events this Hamlet is taking. How can we remain so tense while Gertrude is poisoned by smeared chocolate cake? So thrilled as Laertes warns Ophelia