Joël Leonard Does Scenes From Hamlet

The play is a satirical one-man show, that turns into a comedy sketch show, disguised as a rendition of Hamlet

The play follows JOËL, a born-free white actor from Suburban Johannesburg who attempts to perform the best rendition of Shakespeare’s Hamlet

After the play itself is disrupted by Fees Must Fall Protestors, the ghost of Shakespeare intervenes and convinces JOËL to perform a series of sketches, each one more politically charged than the last

The play was originally conceived at the Wits School of Arts, where the creators were awarded the Richard Haines Prize by the University of the Witwatersrand and toured Johannesburg and Makhanda in 2019 respectively

The play has since been adapted into a short film, where it was screened at the 2020 Fringe Festival, and is currently being published in an anthology of works by Routledge