The role also reunites Cumberbatch with Neal Street Productions, who produced Stuart: A Life Backwards and Starter for 10, a television movie and theatrical film, respectively, in which Cumberbatch had major roles. One of the company’s producers, Pippa Harris, praised Cumberbatch: “His range and dexterity as an actor make him the perfect choice to bring one of Shakespeare’s towering characters to television”.[214]
As with most of Cumberbatch’s career decisions, the media questioned whether his choices were wise if the actor wants to build a lifelong career in the spotlight. A few international newspapers, including the Sydney Morning Herald, published the headline that Cumberbatch “Shuns Hollywood for Shakespeare’s Richard III”.[215] Similar articles asked why Cumberbatch would stop his film career’s momentum for Shakespeare - whether on the Barbican’s stage for the run of Hamlet or in front of television cameras for the BBC’s Richard III. The Australian newspaper wrote that “the current darling of Hollywood’s biggest producers is putting his big screen career on hold to return to Britain and take on the Bard on TV”.[216]
The assumption is that he can do one or the other. Certainly, his time is limited and his schedule full, but Cumberbatch manages to work on projects in a variety of media during a given year. Although he cannot film a television series or movie while starring on stage for several months, projects already in post-production may be released during Hamlet’s run, for example, allowing the actor to be seen on screen while he performs live on stage.
Cumberbatch has made no secret that his home is in Britain and his career involves projects in many media, not only film. The perception by many critics, however, is that film, especially movies made in Hollywood, should be Cumberbatch’s top priority, presumably as an excellent way to make a great deal of money for himself and the industry and as the best way to establish and maintain international stardom. Cumberbatch’s decisions indicate that he disagrees with the media’s consensus about what he should do and when.
Those looking to create controversy also noted that, once again, Cumberbatch plays a role also portrayed by a co-star. Frankenstein co-star Jonny Lee Miller took on the role of Sherlock Holmes for CBS television series Elementary in the U.S. after Cumberbatch starred in the BBC’s Sherlock. This time Cumberbatch signed to star as Richard III after Sherlock co-star Martin Freeman was announced to star in the role on stage at Trafalgar Studios. Comparisons between interpretations or productions do not seem to bother Cumberbatch, but he downplays the media’s assumption that such casting creates controversy or competition with other actors.
Cumberbatch has often been put on the spot by a reporter asking a question he cannot or does not want to answer. At the 2014 Hay Festival, however, he put another actor on the spot. During the last day of the festival, Judi Dench was interviewed by television and theatre director Richard Eyre as part of a Shakespearean acting masterclass. Sitting in the front row during the Q&A, Cumberbatch “ambushed her”[217] by asking “Would you like to be in Richard III with me?” Apparently he had pursued her for several weeks for the role of Cecily. After a dramatic pause, Dench agreed. Giving the audience a taste of what it will be like to see Dench and Cumberbatch acting together, the two performed a scene from Twelfth Night as, respectively, Viola and Orsino.[218]
Unless Cumberbatch already knew that Dench was likely to say yes, he acted a bit presumptuously in forcing her to make a comment at the festival. Usually a network or production company breaks the casting news, like the announcement of Sophie Okonedo’s casting around the same time as the Hay Festival.[219]
Sometimes Cumberbatch’s eagerness seems to get the better of him. When pressed by reporters at the South Bank Show Awards in March 2013, a work-weary Cumberbatch “confirmed” that he and Freeman had signed for a fourth series of Sherlock, although at the time they were only beginning to work on series three episodes. Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat claimed that a fourth series was news to them but joked that Cumberbatch apparently had the power to commission more episodes.[220] Cumberbatch later said he was tired and felt pressure to provide some news; at the time he noted that “I could get in trouble for saying that”.[221]
In light of incidents like these, at least one media outlet suggested that the actor’s behaviour might be a bit more circumspect in the future. Nevertheless, Cumberbatch can hardly be faulted for his enthusiasm about working on some of television’s most illustrious productions.
194 James Medd. “Imperial Gogglebox: TV is One of Britain’s Most Successful Exports.” New Statesman. 26 June 2014.
195 Ibid.
196 “Benedict Cumberbatch on Waterloo Road. Kinda.” Metro. 5 Mar. 2014.
197 PBS. “Benedict Cumberbatch and The Sign of Four (Or Is It Three?).” 4 Feb. 2014. YouTube.
198 Noelene Clark. “Benedict Cumberbatch Faces Muppet Moriarty on ‘Sesame Street.’” Los Angeles Times. 4 Feb. 2014.
199 PBS on Tumblr. 8 Feb. 2014.
200 Top Gear. Series 20, Episode 3. BBC. 14 July 2013.
201 Ibid.
202 Kaiser. “Benedict Cumberbatch Hams It Up at the Laureus Awards: Would You Hit It?” Celebitchy. 27 Mar. 2014.
203 Entertain2014. “Tony Hawk Interview at Laureus Sports Awards 2014.” YouTube. 26 Mar. 2014.
204 Tomas Jivanda. “Lewis Hamilton Wins Malaysian GP, Gets Interviewed by Sherlock Star Benedict Cumberbatch.” Independent. 30 Mar. 2014.
205 Kate Stanton. “Benedict Cumberbatch Interviews Malaysian Grand Prix Winner Lewis Hamilton.” UPI. 30 Mar. 2014.
206 Daniel Johnson. “Monaco Grand Prix 2014: Five Things We Learnt.” Telegraph. 26 May 2014.
207 Ibid.
208 Joanna Crawley. “Benedict Cumberbatch Bonds with a Surly Lewis Hamilton in Monaco Grand Prix Interview.” Entertainmentwise. 25 May 2014.
209 Liz Ferguson. “Hello, Bernie Ecclestone! Did You Remember to Invite Benedict Cumberbatch to Montreal’s Grand Prix?” Montreal Gazette. 1 June 2014.
210 Paul Jones. “Benedict Cumberbatch and His Mum to Launch BBC2 Chelsea Flower Show Coverage.” Radio Times. 11 May 2014.
211 RHS Chelsea Flower Show. BBC One. 19 May 2014.
212 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, 2014. BBC Two. 19 May 2014.
213 Leo Barraclough. “Benedict Cumberbatch to Play Richard III in Neal Street’s Film for BBC.” Variety. 6 Apr. 2014.
214 Ibid.
215 Michael Idato. “Benedict Cumberbatch Shuns Hollywood for Shakespeare’s Richard III.” Sydney Morning Herald. 7 Apr. 2014.
216 Ibid.
217 “Sherlock Star Ambushes Dame Judi Dench at Hay.” BBC News Wales. 2 June 2014.
218 Anita Singh. “Judi Dench to Star with Benedict Cumberbatch in Shakespeare.” Telegraph. 1 June 2014.
219 Leo Barraclough. “Sophie Okonedo Set to Join Benedict Cumberbatch in ‘The Hollow Crown’: Report.” Variety. 30 May 2014.
220 Paul Jones. “Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman Commissioned Sherlock Series 4 Themselves Says Steven Moffat.” Radio Times.14 Oct. 2013.
221 Claire Webb & Paul Jones. “Benedict Cumberbatch Confirms Sherlock Series 4.” Radio Times. 12 Mar. 2013.
Chapter 8
Back to the Theatre
“I was also brought up in a very traditional, text-heavy, educational environment, where reading and the word and the script - ‘The play is the thing’ - was my schooling, as well as my training”. [222]
Benedict Cumberbatch
In Cumberbatch’s classical theatrical training, text is crucial, and the actor has tackled many powerful texts in his theatrical career. If he has not yet played all the roles on his wish list, like John Proctor in Arthur Miller’s The
Crucible, there is every expectation that he someday will - most likely to a packed house and media frenzy. Theatre has been a cornerstone of Cumberbatch’s career, and he repeatedly reassures fans that he has no intention of abandoning the stage in favour of more globally accessible or lucrative offers.
In the jigsaw puzzle of scheduling that has become Cumberbatch’s professional life, the “stage” sometimes means a one-off venue for a dramatic reading, for example, because committing to a multiple-month run in a play has become a more difficult piece to fit into the picture. “Theatre” might also be a special event, such as a brief scene performed as part of the National Theatre’s fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Thus, the theatre community may have been surprised, and Cumberbatch’s fans ecstatic, when the actor was announced to star in another of his long-wished-for roles as Hamlet during a three-month run in 2015.
The Power of Shakespeare
Richard III developed a direct connection to Sherlock when both Martin Freeman and Cumberbatch were announced to be taking on one of Shakespeare’s most cunning characters. The tyrant king is not the only Shakespearean character to pique Cumberbatch’s interest, however. In the years preceding the 2013 announcement that Cumberbatch would star in Hamlet, the actor discussed his interest in the role and his belief that he was about the right age (he thought 36 or 37) to play Hamlet.[223] He would slightly exceed this deadline by turning 39 a few weeks before the opening.
When news of the play’s three-month run beginning in August 2015 was published, the Barbican Centre’s production fast became a hot ticket in London, months before sales actually took place. Anticipating pre-sales to members, fans who could afford the fee bought annual memberships to the Barbican (£100 per year for the most exclusive Red membership); approximately three thousand patrons bought memberships in the weeks before tickets went on sale.[224]
Slightly more than two months before sales opened, the Barbican stated its policy that each household could only purchase a maximum of six tickets across all performances, the booker’s name would be printed on the tickets, and a photo ID would be required upon entry.[225] This procedure was designed to limit sales so that more people could attend performances and fewer blocks of tickets would be bought purely for resale.
On August 1, 2014, when sales opened to Red members, thousands of fans waited in online queues for hours before getting their tickets. For example, one fan entered the online waiting area more than an hour before the sales website opened, automatically received a randomly assigned a number showing her position within the web queue (3,782), and waited four hours before being allowed into the site’s ticket-buying area. Although that was a very long queue, it was nothing compared to public booking, when more than 30,000 were in the Barbican queue at once, but whether those were “real” people or multiple windows opened by considerably fewer patrons could not be measured.
By the time that tickets were made available to the public on August 11, the Barbican’s allotment of seats in the stalls and lower circle were mostly gone; however, the theatre held back one hundred £10 seats to be distributed before each performance to make the show accessible to more people. Fans heatedly discussed the ticket-buying process on social media when the sales went public. Tickets sold through other outlets on August 11 incensed some buyers who had waited a long time in the Barbican queue or had bought a Red or an Orange membership with the idea of getting the best seats possible before public sales. According to numerous reports on Twitter and Tumblr, front row and other good seats in the stalls were available through outlets like ATG long after the Barbican’s best seats had been purchased. In any case, the entire run of Hamlet was sold out within a few hours on August 11, 2014, breaking previous sales records. This Hamlet became the most in-demand production of all time.[226]
Although Cumberbatch is not the cause of the ticket-access dilemma, Hamlet is still an excellent example of the way a theatre or a star’s fans may react when tickets for a play’s run will be limited. Because of online booking, patrons from around the world can buy tickets and sell out a performance within hours. (Surprisingly, perhaps, tickets to Cumberbatch’s readings at the Hay Festival in May sold out only the second fastest in the event’s history, within a few hours.[227]) Therefore, as more stars take to the stage, prices and demand likely will continue to go up.
As the Telegraph’s theatre critic Dominic Cavendish explained, the current practices of many theatres, while legal and certainly understandable from a sales perspective, nonetheless are unfortunately limiting the audience to those who can afford to buy special memberships for early booking or pay higher prices.[228] The nature of theatre-going in a celebrity-adoring culture is changing the way that patrons view productions and businesses anticipate a production’s financial success. The Barbican Centre’s large size, as well as its strict policies, nonetheless helped it likely avoid problems that smaller venues have had when a star performs Shakespeare.
Cumberbatch or Tom Hiddleston fan sites reported audience “issues,” from pro and con perspectives, surrounding Hiddleston’s performances in Coriolanus in early 2014. Complaints arose when some eager fans reportedly became so excited to see Hiddleston on stage that they tried to record a performance, jockeyed for a position where they could better see the actor (especially when he took a shower on stage), or made noise during the performance - all detracting from other audience members’ enjoyment of the play. Even greater concerns came to light when some people were described as feeling so entitled to meet the actor, because they had bought a ticket to the play, that they hurled abuse at the security team or repeatedly tried to crash the line of people awaiting Hiddleston.
Cumberbatch came into the fray when he attended a performance and afterward went for dinner with his friend. According to fan reports on numerous websites, the pair were chased down the street and into a restaurant. Such behaviour[229] not only incited lengthy discussions on fan forums, but they likely prompted the Barbican to implement and publicise their sales policies well in advance of Hamlet.
Most telling about the anticipation for Hamlet, Cumberbatch let it be known at a fan convention that he would not be doing stage door, so patrons planning to greet him there or wait for an autograph knew well in advance not to travel, perhaps thousands of miles, just to be disappointed when they could not meet him after a performance. Health and safety reasons (such as the actor looking after his voice and stamina during the run, as well as avoiding a potential crush of excited theatregoers that could inadvertently hurt him, security, or fans) likely led to Cumberbatch’s decision; he reportedly explained at Oz Comic Con that stage-door meetings take a great deal of time. If a large percentage of the more than one thousand-seat Barbican theatre wanted to wait after each performance, the stage-door line would be unmanageable and require hours of signing/saying hello to accommodate everyone.
Instead, when Cumberbatch returns to the theatre for the Shakespearean role of his dreams, his motto truly becomes “the play’s the thing”. The actor previously has made it known that he wants as many people as possible, whether fans, critics, or the general public, to be able to attend performances. Given his explosive popularity and some not-so-pleasant encounters with paparazzi, sometimes reportedly posing as “fans,”[230] Cumberbatch and those who employ him wisely must plan for the safety of the actor and those who want to enjoy seeing him in person.
“Fans” became a hot topic when Cumberbatch’s Sherlock co-star, Freeman, played Richard III at Trafalgar Studios beginning July 1, 2014. Before the first week of Richard III was over, critics began blasting “Hobbit fans” for their lack of theatre etiquette. Although the Daily Mail[231] and Times[232] were the first with the story, the complaints were picked up internationally, including in New Zealand,[233] home to the Hobbit films starring Freeman and Cumberbatch. A few fans reportedly began to cheer and applaud just as Freeman’s Richard began the famous line “Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious s
ummer by this son of York”. Director Jamie Lloyd later corrected this report by stating that only a few fans applauded or cheered during the scene change following Richard’s opening speech.[234]
The focus of comments about theatre etiquette and exuberant fans during previews clouded media coverage of the play’s official opening on July 8, emphasising what seems to be a growing schism in the theatre community between enthusiastic fans of film or television actors appearing on stage and frequent theatre-going patrons who want to watch a play in peace and quiet. One actor described the current audience of young Freeman fans (who might attend Hamlet because they also are Cumberbatch, Hobbit, or Sherlock fans) as “people who spend most of their day with wire in their ears. It is not so much Richard III as Richard the rock concert”.[235] My experience during the first two nights’ performances and stage door differed. Instead of a Beatlemania-style response during the play or at the stage door, most fans were well behaved but dedicated to seeing, and possibly meeting, Freeman. Yet this media response to fans attending performances in the relatively small Trafalgar Studios suggested the type of media or theatre concern for the amount of interest in Cumberbatch’s Hamlet, even at the larger Barbican. The issue of why someone buys a theatre ticket - because of an actor or because of the play - is becoming an increasingly hot topic as theatres and patrons increasingly deal not only with stars but celebrity culture.
Benedict Cumberbatch, Transition Completed Page 15