Jul 8
Michael Pennington as Hamlet at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon, 1980. Photograph: Donald Cooper/Alamy
In 1980 Pennington, already an accomplished and experienced Shakespearean actor, turned down the male lead in The French Lieutenant’s Woman, saying: “I realised I couldn’t let Hamlet go. It is one of the prizes.” The RSC director John Barton had broached the possibility of casting him back in 1975. He described Pennington as “a very fine actor… He’s the person I most want to do Hamlet with.”
