The Hamlet Voyage - Performance & Education
Coming Summer 2022 to the Bristol Harbour Festival
The Hamlet Voyage is a new play about the first written record of a performance of Hamlet, acted by sailors in 1607 off the coast of Sierra Leone for local West African dignitaries, on the first English voyage to reach India.
PERFORMANCE
• New play by Rex Obano about Hamlet being
performed by sailors in Sierra Leone in 1607
• Scenes in the Mughal court in New Delhi
• Before colonisation of India or English
involvement in transatlantic slave trade
EDUCATION PLAN
• 4 sessions, 1.5 hours each
• Three threads:
– History (Seafaring, Sierra Leone, Mughal Empire)
– Performance (Drumming, African Storytelling,
Shakespeare, Sea Shanties)
– Creative Writing (Ship Logs, African Parables, Poetry)
• Online Component:
– Interactive website with voyage map
– Literature and historical documents
– Opportunities for students to share writing
