Product Details

• Actors: Michael Kitchen, Nicholas Farrell, John Shrapnel, Susan Fleetwood, Tilda Swinton
• Directors: Dave Edwards, Natalya Orlova
• Writers: Leon Garfield, William Shakespeare
• Producers: Dave Edwards, Christopher Grace, Elizabeth Babakhina, Peter Orton
• Format: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony
• VHS Release Date: April 19, 1995
• Run Time: 30 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302682290
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #405,944 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Animated Shakespeare for Children of all ages, September 17, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Hamlet [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This title is actually an animated version with real actors' voices, about 30 minutes long. Our kids love it, and the 5 other plays in the series. Most of the reviews on this topic actually refer to Kenneth Branagh's full-length video, not the animated version. My kids and I hope Random House completes the series with childrens' videos of all the plays. END

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars poor animation (drawn in crayon?); almost none of the lines, November 25, 2005

By 

Conrad Cook "Conrad Cook" (Boston) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Hamlet [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Can't even recommend this one for kids. It's done in the cheapo still-frame "squiggle" animation style, fading from one still to the next. They tried to make it a fairy tale. A narrator in voice-over tells most of the story; there is almost nothing remaining of Shakespeare's script. It runs about a half-hour, and the effort to abridge and tidy it up for the eyes of children resulted in the nunnery scene (for example) vanishing as mysteriously as does Ophelia. The lines it includes are mangled beyond recognition.

While Hamlet isn't a story for children (so why make the adaptation?), this is just insulting. If you find anything worthwhile in Shakespeare's story, don't inflict this on your kids: they'll get scared when you start shouting at the screen.