A hundred years later the Royal National Theatre appeared in the Courtyard of Kronborg with the next Hamlet.

Sir Laurence Olivier, has hovered like a paternal spirit over the Hamlet performances at the castle

However, it was not until 1937 that the play became a recurring event. Since then one of the great Shakespeare-interpreters of the last century, Sir Laurence Olivier, has hovered like a paternal spirit over the Hamlet performances at the castle.

In 1937 he played Hamlet himself, and for a number of years he was closely linked to The Old Vic Company, the main producer of a number of Hamlet performances at Kronborg which count 1939 with John Gielgud, 1954 with Richard Burton, and 1979 with Derek Jacobi.

Since 1979 there have been a number of attempts to start a new epoch of Hamlet productions at Kronborg, e.g. in 1996 with a ballet performance by Peter Schaufuss and the rock band ‘Sort Sol’. However, it would take 21 years from the last major guest performance until the Courtyard was reopened for Hamlet-productions.

In the year 2000 the Royal National Theatre, London, performed Hamlet directed by John Caird with Simon Russell Beale in the leading role as Hamlet.

In 2016, the festival will host a Russian Shakespeare production of Measure for Measure, several new Shakespearean works and the world premiere of the very first Nordic Hamlet-opera take to the stage in the Courtyard of Hamlet’s Castle, Kronborg.