Dear Simon Russell Beale,
Our 11th grade English class just finished listening to your version of Hamlet. I really enjoyed listening to it because it helped me understand and focus more on the reading. It left room for interpretation and imagination. I think if i were to read it on my own i would be focusing on all of the words and phrases i didn’t know rather than what is going on in the txt. I feel that you did a good job with this reading but like always there was definitely room for improvement. Your tone throughout the reading remained almost the same, you had a deep quite voice. I sometime got bored. You also spoke very very slowly. I think if you sped it up a bit (now we are not talking about the whole time, just when it was needed) it would improve the over all reading. I understand it must be very difficult to make a character come to life orally so i give you props for doing a good job on that. You just need to change it up a bit so the listener doesn’t get bored or tired of listening to you.
your listener,
bakerboi247
May 25th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
I definitely agree that listening to the recording helped me with comprehension – to keep me from focusing on little phrases and things – but I have to disagree with your feelings on his performance. You said that his tone rarely changed, but I actually thought the opposite! I found sometimes found myself wondering why he was being SO dramatic (with his inflection and such) – but to each their own I guess!
May 25th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
EDIT: I think I can remember listening to the “to be or not to be” speech and thinking it was strangely muted of emotion – so I guess I DO understand where you’re coming from!