Playing Hamlet in the face of death

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In 1989, at London’s National Theatre, Scottish actor Ian Charleson walked out on stage to play Hamlet, one of theatre’s most demanding roles. The Chariots of Fire actor had stepped into the lead role of Shakespeare’s great tragedy of grief, betrayal and death after Daniel Day-Lewis had pulled out of the production halfway through its run. His performance received a rapturous reception and has since come to be regarded as one of the great renditions of his generation. But many in the audience didn’t know that Ian was confronting death, both on and off stage. Ian was terminally ill with AIDS, at a time when the condition was feared and stigmatised, and didn’t know how long he had left to live. Sir Richard Eyre, the play’s director, and Professor Margaret Johnson, his doctor at the time, remember him – and his astonishing, heart-breaking final performance. A new film called Elsinore has been made about Ian Charleson's last role as Hamlet. A new world record for solving the Rubik's Cube at head-spinning speed reminded us of the time in 2020 when Outlook's Saskia Colette went in search of its elusive creator. En route she meets another of the fastest cubers in the world, Feliks Zemdegs. He can solve the puzzle in a matter of seconds, but even he can't tell Saskia where she can find its inventor – Erno Rubik. This interview was first broadcast in 2020. Presenter: Mobeen Azhar Producers: Zoe Gelber and Saskia Collette (Photo: A black and white image of Ian Charleson on stage as Hamlet in an earlier version of the play, with Cambridge Theatre Company in 1974. Ian sits on the stage, wearing a white shirt and black waistcoat. He is looking up pensively as if lost in thought. Credit: Donald Cooper/Alamy)