In my opinion the younger generation black, white, brown, whatever it is, you’re living in a time of revolution, extremism, a time when there’s got to be change.(Malcolm X, October 1964, Oxford Student Union)

What kind of change does Hamlet advocate and what is its relevance to the twenty-first century? In this timely lecture on Hamlet, Mark Ravenhill offers a personal journey through Shakespeare’s 1603 tragedy that takes in British and not so British Hamlets, offering reflections on loss, heroism, celebrity, clowning and psychopaths that speak of the work’s shifting meanings from the mid-twentieth century to the present.

Mark Ravenhill is an internationally acclaimed playwright whose first full-length play, Shopping and Fucking, opened at the Royal Court Theatre Upstairs in 1996. He is a controversial and seminal playwright, whose mark upon theatre was honoured in 2008 when Paines Plough, Out of Joint, Royal Court, Gate and National Theatres collectively presented his short works in a show entitled Ravenhill for Breakfast. In the UK, his works have been produced at the National Theatre, Donmar Warehouse, Barbican Theatre, Soho Theatre, Lyric Hammersmith and Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh. Recently, as Writer in Residence at the RSC, his play inspired by Voltaire’s Candide played in the Swan Theatre (2013). TV work includes BBC 2’s Cab Confessionals.

Followed by a drinks reception.