The many faces of Hamlet

Jude Law is to play Hamlet in a season of Donmar-produced plays at Wyndham's Theatre in London. With Law's name attached, this Hamlet is set to be a hot ticket. The Donmar's artistic director Michael Grandage says: "Jude is a muscular, visceral actor who has a very direct connection with raw emotion." Photograph: Sarah Lee

John Gielgud was only 26 years old when he essayed the role of Hamlet at the Old Vic in London. James Agate called it "the high-water mark of English Shakespearean acting of our time". Gielgud resumed the role several times and directed himself in a 1964 Broadway production of the play. Photograph: Getty

Laurence Olivier portrayed the prince on stage and screen. He directed himself in a classic 1948 film which told - in the words of Olivier and his marketing department - "the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind". Photograph: Ronald Grant Archive

In 1970, Richard Chamberlain played a dashing Dane in a TV version that made a big impact on a young Kenneth Branagh. Chamberlain had played the role on stage the previous year, opposite Gemma Jones as Ophelia. Photograph: Ian Tyas/Getty

Stephen Berkoff staged his 1980 production of Hamlet "as if we were dissecting the play under the lights of an operating theatre". Photograph: Graham Morris/Getty

The casting of Mel Gibson as Hamlet was considered tragic by some. Gibson appeared in Franco Zeffirelli's 1990 film, which pushed the prince's oedipal complex to breaking point. Photograph: Kobal

In 1995, Ralph Fiennes played Hamlet in a production that ran at the Hackney Empire in London and on Broadway, winning Fiennes a Tony award. His co-stars included Tara Fitzgerald (as Ophelia) and Francesca Annis (as Gertrude). Photograph: Tristram Kenton

In 1996 actor-director Kenneth Branagh steered a full-text screen version of Hamlet, weighing in at 242 minutes. The cast included everyone from Brian Blessed (Ghost) to Richard Briers (Polonius) and even Ken Dodd (Yorick). Even so, Branagh lost the best adapted screenplay Oscar to Billy Bob Thornton's script for Sling Blade. Photograph: Rex Features

In 2000, Peter Brook presented a taut production of Hamlet with just eight actors in Paris. The play was staged at London's Young Vic the following year, with Adrian Lester resuming the main role. "It is a remarkable performance that puts emotional spontaneity before rhetoric," wrote Michael Billington. Photograph: Jean-Pierre Muller/AFP

Ethan Hawke played a thoroughly modern Hamlet in a 2000 movie relocating Shakespeare's play to Manhattan, and setting the intrigue inside the rotten "Denmark Corporation". Peter Bradshaw thought Hawke's Hamlet was "a bit of an indie-band lead singer" but found the film to be a "stylish and inventive reading". Photograph: Kobal

Christopher Eccleston starred as Hamlet at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in 2002. "Welcome to Yorickshire," exclaimed Susannah Clapp's review. Clapp thought the production was "Hamlet without the heart" and that Eccleston was "not so much disturbed as merely surly". Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Michael Maloney had background roles opposite Mel Gibson and Kenneth Branagh in their blockbuster Hamlet movies. Maloney played the lead role himself in this 2004 production at the Barbican, directed by veteran Japanese director Yukio Ninagawa. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Trevor Nunn's 2004 production at London's Old Vic boasted a bracingly young Hamlet - 23-year-old Ben Whishaw. Whishaw reminded Michael Billington of a "scuttling, manic Danish Mr Bean". Imogen Stubbs played Gertrude. Photograph: Tristram Kenton

Christopher Eccleston isn't the only actor to play both Doctor Who and the Prince of Denmark. It has just been announced that resident timelord David Tennant will appear as Hamlet opposite Patrick Stewart's Claudius in a new RSC production. Photograph: Chris Clark/PA