Andrew Scott stopped Hamlet after audience member opened laptop mid-performance
Andrew Scott stopped a production of Hamlet after a spectator pulled out a laptop. (Getty)
Before Andrew Scott was known as Fleabag‘s Hot Priest, the Irish actor wowed everyone with his one-man production of Hamlet. Well, almost everyone.
The Irish actor has big-screen, stage and TV successes to his name, but the pinnacle of his thespian career possibly came when he appeared in Robert Icke’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy Hamlet at the Almeida Theatre in 2017.
The powerhouse performance secured Scott an Olivier Award nomination, critical praise and audience adoration. But, it wasn’t all smooth sailing, as he recalled during an appearance on the Happy Sad Confused film podcast with Josh Horowitz.
After the host asked whether he had ever been thrown by someone in the audience, the BAFTA-winning actor laughingly recalled one memorable performance where a man pulled out a laptop during the play.
“I was in the middle of ‘To be or f**king not to be’,” Scott said. “I was pausing and [the stage team] were like ‘get on with it’ and I was like ‘there’s no way’ and he [the audience member] didn’t realise.”
Scott re-enacted the threatening glare he shot at the unsuspecting theatre-goer. Eventually, after lots of nudging from the woman beside him, the laptop owner snapped the lid shut.
Sherlock star Scott appeared on the film podcast alongside Claire Foy, his co-star in the upcoming Andrew Haigh film All of Us Strangers, a queer adaptation of Taichi Yamada’s novel Strangers.
The critically acclaimed film follows the devastating love story between screenwriter Adam (Scott) and his lonely tower-block neighbour Harry, played by Paul Mescal.
As their romance blossoms, Adam returns to his childhood home where he communes with the spirits of his late parents (Foy and Jamie Bell), frozen in time after their deaths 30 years earlier.
All of Us Strangers is due to open in UK cinemas on 26 January.
