Grand Theft Hamlet

As Valentine said to Proteus, "I rather would entreat thy company To see the wonders of the world abroad Than, living dully sluggardised at home, Wear out thy youth with shapeless idleness". Those, the Two Gentleman Of Verona, had advantages in travelling that others do not. In UK lockdowns, as part of Covid restrictions, two others find themselves duly slumped on sofas. Actors without work, without stage, at home alone and with partner and children respectively. The solution if they cannot see the wonders of the world, to defy that shapeless idleness, is simple.

They will stage a play where they can. Hamlet, its play within a play, cannot have its players on any ordinary stage. Polonius notes that "such wanton, wild and usual slips As are companions noted and most known To youth and liberty" and Reynaldo counts among them gaming. Grand Theft Auto Online's place of other playing. Not Paris, destination of Laertes, that Reynaldo might witness him in vice indulging. Not Liberty City, nor Vice City, of the game numbered fourth and the fourth game of that series.

Los Santos, a place whose geography will be as familiar to some as any other streets they have spent hours driving. A reflection of Los Angeles, not only real but more than real, a metropolis and its environs that looks like the movies look. Sicinius asked in Coriolanus: "What is the city but the people?" and in GTA Online those people are something else.

Launched in 2013 GTA Online has about 20 million users a month, with perhaps half a million online right now. That's across various consoles and platforms, all themselves stages for play. That's Mexico City in total, a Liverpool at any one time. There's room in there for Denmark three times, though the virtual geography is much more compact, one could fit the whole map with space for something rotten 565 times into that state.

These numbers are to illustrate scale, and at the counter just three. Sam Crane and Mark Osterveen, actors, and filmmaker Pinny Grylls. Sam and Mark hatch a scheme to stage Hamlet in the only place they can. Pinny joins, perhaps as much to see what Sam's doing when he's both in and out of the house.

Within the ambition to do, and to document, there's a parallel documentary. One about the experience of lockdown, the isolation of those who live alone, of how video games are transformative and escapist and still full of people, of how even a false sky over digital waves on a living room television can be moments of beauty. One about falsity, and feelings, and language and self. One where foils are sawn-offs and submachineguns, where there are apologies for falling off a blimp. One about lots of things, but warily, almost secretly, as if hidden behind a curtain.

The absurdity is one of its delights. Dialogue punctuated by off-screen explosions, "slings and arrows" upgraded to hovering jets and cannon fire. "the native hue of resolution" is differently found in setting menus. I laughed aloud at play and with the players too. The idea itself is a thing of beauty but its execution is impeccable. One might think it had witchcraft in't, it is wondrous doing.

Machinima is a relatively modern form of cinema, one made possible by advances in computing. With the Grand Theft Auto series this becomes somewhat self-reflexive. Despite its commercial success it is heavily indebted creatively, the look of any number of films is borrowed brilliantly across the games. That extends to technicalities, the use of simulated lens flare suggests the sun is really there, albeit intermediated by a camera that isn't. It is uncanny to see places I have been on the screen, whether they are Glasgow as Gotham or an electronic Elsinore.

Horatio himself said "in what particular thought to work I know not", and in truth I know not entirely how Grand Theft Hamlet works. It is enough perhaps to say that it does, and that because of the efforts of its players, in both senses. The production of Crane Grylls and Oosterveen won a stage award for innovation and their film would not be undeserving if more prizes came its way. Upon whatever platform where you watch, be it a cinema screen or one which has previously shown you Los Santos rain slick pavements, you must watch well and wonder, as Marcellus did.