Grand Theft Hamlet sounds like the setup for a joke: a group of actors trying to perform Shakespeare’s Hamlet inside the chaotic, violence-filled world of Grand Theft Auto Online. And sure, the film leans heavily into the absurdity of its premise: watching a player-controlled Danish prince deliver his “to be or not to be” soliloquy while an in-game cop car smashes into the scene is a unique kind of hilarity. But beneath the rocket launchers and ridiculous avatars emerges a story about connection, creativity, and the desperate need to do something meaningful in an isolating and uncertain time. The result is something far more entertaining — and surprisingly moving — than you’d expect.
The film documents the efforts of actors Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, who, like so many artists, found themselves stuck at home during the COVID-19 pandemic’s third UK lockdown. With theaters shuttered and no outlet for their craft, the pair stumble across a virtual amphitheater in GTA Online, and what begins as a quarantine-fueled joke — reciting Shakespearean soliloquies with their in-game avatars shortly before digital cops arrive and open fire — evolves into an outlandish plan: what if they could stage a full-length production of Hamlet using the game’s crude mechanics? With Sam’s real-life romantic partner, filmmaker Pinny Grylls, joining as both documentarian and participant, what begins as a playful distraction grows into an increasingly ambitious (and increasingly chaotic) passion project.
Anyone who shares even the faintest familiarity with Grand Theft Auto will know that chaos is the game’s default setting, and that’s on full display here. Random players interrupt scenes by mowing people down in cars, NPCs wander listlessly through Hamlet’s big speeches, and characters accidentally die mid-performance, only to respawn miles away from the action. The absurdity of it all is laugh-out-loud funny, especially when Shakespeare’s grand language clashes with GTA’s ridiculously over-the-top setting; watching actors trying to stay in character while dodging repeated blasts from rocket launchers, or seeing a cast member slip off the side of a blimp and plummet to their death mid-scene, is pure comedic gold.
But the humor is only part of the story. At its core, Grand Theft Hamlet is about people trying to find purpose and connection during one of the most disconnected times in modern history. For Sam, the project becomes a lifeline, a way to cling to his identity as a performer when everything else is on pause. But his obsession with the production starts to strain his relationship with Pinny, who, at one point, logs into the game herself just to communicate with him. These personal stakes, combined with the logistical and technical hurdles of staging the play, lend the film an emotional depth that’s as surprising as it is compelling.
The film also captures the specific, shared desperation of lockdown: the need to do something, no matter how impractical or absurd, to stave off feelings of isolation and stagnation. For the actors, this production isn’t just a quirky experiment, it’s a way to channel their frustrations and reclaim some sense of normalcy. And yet, as their virtual Hamlet unfolds, the messy, unpredictable nature of the game becomes something of a metaphor for the chaos of the world outside.
What makes Grand Theft Hamlet so unexpectedly captivating is the way it balances these tones, and it’s in this juxtaposition between comedy and heartbreak that the film finds its charm; by the end, it feels like a celebration of creativity itself. Even in a virtual world built on chaos of the highest order, and even in a time of deep uncertainty (to paraphrase Jeff Goldblum), the desire to create and connect finds a way.