Critics laud Cumberbatch in ‘Hamlet’

Benedict Cumberbatch — whom the British press apparently has taken to calling “Bendy” — has now officially made the leap from “Sherlock” to Shakespeare.

The actor is making his long-awaited turn in the title role of “Hamlet,” whose London production had its press opening yesterday at the Barbican Theatre.

Although a few media outlets had already jumped the gun, running reviews after the show’s first preview, most waited to weigh in. And now that the notices are in, most seem to be complimentary toward Cumberbatch.

Less so, though, toward the overall show.

A sampling:

In the New York Times, chief critic Ben Brantley writes that “Mr. Cumberbatch is good enough as Hamlet to make me wish he were even better.”

As for the production: “Full of scenic spectacle and conceptual tweaks and quirks, this ‘Hamlet’ is never boring,” Brantley says. “It is also never emotionally moving — except on those occasions when Mr. Cumberbatch’s Hamlet is alone with his thoughts, trying to make sense of a loud, importunate world that demands so much of him.”

Cumberbatch “is in fighting trim here, and brings energy and precision to every word and movement, including the climactic fencing match. Yet this Hamlet seldom seems to relate to anyone else onstage. In the big dialogue scenes, you’re conscious of Mr. Cumberbatch riding Shakespeare’s rushing words like a surfboard, as if saving his interior energy for the monologues.

“In those, he is superb, meticulously tracing lines of thought into revelations that stun, elate, exasperate and sadden him.”

Sam Marlowe of the Chicago Tribune wrote that Cumberbatch “gives us a Danish prince who seeks refuge from his grief and rage in memory and in his childhood. He’s a prickly, abrasive presence rather than a charismatic one, and though we sense his pain is corrosive, he rarely moves us.

“Yet it is an absorbing performance, crammed with nuance and flickering dark wit, and at times radiating an unnerving intensity.”

In London’s Evening Standard, Henry Hitchings observed that the actor “is a charismatic Hamlet, energetic but also pensive. He’s at his best when delivering Shakespeare’s philosophically charged soliloquies, to each of which he brings an intelligence that’s both fresh and unsettling.”

And in the Daily Mail, Quentin Letts wrote: “After all the hype and excitement, how does the Cumberbatch Hamlet rate? Does small-screen beau Benedict bring home the Dane’s bacon?

“Yes. But his performance is better than the rest of the show. This is a fine Hamlet in a patchy, occasionally puerile production.”

“Hamlet,” directed by Lyndsey Turner, runs through Oct. 31. It is (surprise) sold out.

Check Playbill.com for links to more reviews.