Yes, I’m sure we’re all aware by now that the RSC are presenting Starship Elsinore,  starring Captain Picard and Doctor Who. It’s a happy day for teenaged girls and Trekkies, but not everyone is happy. No, if you’re a crabby old man with a bee in your bonnet about “celebrities” being allowed to invade legitimate theatre, you might be terribly upset.

Poor old Jonathan Miller. Not only is he unhappy about not being invited to direct anything high profile recently, despite being such an obvious ray of sunshine, now those nasty producers are getting well-known people in to pollute the RSC. People who don’t usually go to the theatre will profane the hallowed halls at Stratford just because someone they saw (whisper it low) on the television is performing. The hoi polloi are invading, the end of the world is nigh.

I am a little more cheerful about this Hamlet. Last year’s Christmas stocking contained two tickets for a performance in September and I’m looking forward to it. Unlike Mr Miller, I am not a snob. Well… I’m a bit of a snob, maybe, but I try not to be enough of a snob to allow myself to be blinded to good theatre. I was brought up by a Star Trek-loving mother and have rated Patrick Stewart highly from an early age. Over the past two years I’ve seen him as Prospero, Anthony, Malvolio and Macbeth and none of them resembled Jean-Luc Picard beyond having similar noses. The chances are that I’d have gone to see Hamlet for Stewart alone.

As for “that man from Doctor Who”, I’m looking forward to seeing him on stage. I haven’t done so since he was in Shinda the Magic Ape at the Royal Lyceum in Edinburgh, which can’t have been long after he graduated from the RSAMD. I certainly haven’t seen any of his previous work with the RSC and neither, it would seem, has Jonathan Miller. Either that or he doesn’t go through his old programmes as regularly as I do. David Tennant is a trained and experienced actor who already had plenty of appearances on stage and screen under his belt before he had ever set foot in the Tardis. To ignore his previous achievements is simply disrespectful and Jonathan Miller ought to know better. We’re not talking about Martine McCutcheon in My Fair Lady here. The RSC is still using trained actors with a proven track record, and that’s not the same as a straightforward publicity stunt.

Naturally, there will be some people who will go to see Hamlet simply because Tennant is in it. I’m sure there were some people who turned up for The Tempest simply because it featured Patrick Stewart, but they managed to behave themselves and left their pointy ears at home. The question is, does it really matter whether these people would usually go to the theatre or not? People who don’t go regularly as just as entitled to their tickets as those of us who do. Theatre is for whoever wants it, regardless of their reason for choosing to attend. There’s no guarantee that they’ll then go on to become regular theatre-goers or that they’ll ever enter a theatre again, but isn’t it worth a try?

The RSC has anticipated a potential problem and banned fans from bringing sci-fi merchandise for Tennant and Stewart to sign. I think that’s reasonable enough. They haven’t banned autograph-hunting altogether, so presumably you can still buy a programme and attempt to get it signed.

And next time I go to see a Jonathan Miller production, I shall take along a Dalek and ask him to sign it for me.

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