Sorry about that headline.

A strange posting on Brian Mickelthwait's excellent Culture Blog (which I greatly recommend for its quirky posts).

Writing about the new production of Hamlet which has opened to, literally, mixed reviews - some raves and some pretty lukewarm - he makes a valid point about the predominance of the director's name in the marketing:

No problem about telling us all about how important Trevor Nunn is though. He gets start billing on the posters. You'd think he was playing Hamlet. "Trevor Nunn's Hamlet." As they say in America: please. You do eventually learn, if you follow that link and read past the big picture of Trevor Nunn, that Trevor Nunn's Hamlet is actually being acted (as opposed to directed/produced) not by Trevor Nunn as you might have expected, but by a certain Ben Whishaw, 23.

Guess who's playing Gertrude. Correct. Mrs Trevor Nunn.

In case you are confused, and given that Trevor Nunn doesn't actually act Hamlet in Trevor Nunn's Hamlet, did Trevor Nunn perhaps write Trevor Nunn's Hamlet. No again. Trevor Nunn's Hamlet wasn't actually written by Trevor Nunn at all, but by William Shakespeare (1564-1616). True. Not Trevor Nunn at all. Trevor Nunn just told the actors where to stand and organised the rehearsals. Just for that, Trevor Nunn gets to have Trevor Nunn up on the poster in big letters. TREVOR NUNN.

But.

For one thing, it's a bit unfair attacking the nepotism of having his misses as Gertrude, since she happens to be one of the finest actresses in the country, Imogen Stubbs - and she is an especially outstanding Shakespearean actress (I still recall her Desdemona in Nunn's production of Othello, with Willard White).

But his other point is plain wrong:

One of the more annoying affectations of the British subsidised theatre is that even when a production clearly has a Big Star Performer, as here, they nevertheless list the actors in alphabetical order. So who the hell is playing Hamlet? Impossible to tell.

It may be an affectation of the subsidised theatre, but the Old Vic isn't subsidised and nor is this production.

Thus Brian's complaint -

The crappiest seats to watch Trevor Nunn's Hamlet, where you don't actually get to sit down at all, to watch Trevor Nunn's Hamlet, are £10. The crappiest seats where you do get to sit down and watch Trevor Nunn's Hamlet are, if I remember it right, £12.50.

The genuinely decent seats for Trevor Nunn's Hamlet are £37.50. This is way out of my league. No offence to Trevor Nunn's Hamlet (keep reading, we'll get to offending Trevor Nunn's Hamlet quite soon now) but this is more than I can afford. What if I really like it and want to go again, to Trevor Nunn's Hamlet? What if I want to take another friend to Trevor Nunn's Hamlet. That's a whole trip to the South of France.

- is surely misguided. It's a purely commercial venture, and they can charge what they want. If Brian considers it way too much, so what? There'll be plenty of others who do think it worth paying that. No one is having to pay tax to fund the production. We can all take it or leave it.

(And, as it happens, the £12.50 seats at the Old Vic are excellent, and terrirfic value - I've sat in them myself.)

It's the market. They charge, and we decide whether or not to pay. If enough of us do, they make money. Possibly lots. And if we don't, they lose money. Possibly lots.

BTW, rush, rush, rush to see the Tom Stoppard adaptation of Pirandello's Henry IV at the Donmar. Ian McDiarmid's performance is stunning.