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Oscar-tipped film Elsinore centres on the Chariots of Fire star's final acting feat before his death aged 40. Those closest to him then recall his extraordinary swansong.
Shakespeare's Hamlet famously stands as one of the most, if not the most, challenging theatrical parts in the English language. The play of the same name is Shakespeare's longest and the eponymous character has more lines than any other Shakespearean character by a considerable margin. But while countless illustrious actors have committed to playing the Prince of Denmark over the centuries, no one has done it in such extraordinary circumstances as Ian Charleson.
In 1989, he played the role at London's National Theatre to rave reviews as he was dying of Aids. It was an incredible feat of resilience that is now being retold in the biographical film Elsinore, named after the castle in which Hamlet is set. It has left critics and early viewers deeply moved – in particular by the performance as Charleson of Andrew Scott, who is now favourite to win next year's best actor Oscar.
Charleson was most famous for playing Eric Liddell, the devout Christian athlete who refused to race on Sundays, in the Oscar-winning 1981 hit Chariots of Fire. He was in another Oscar-winner, Gandhi, the following year.
However by 1989, the Scottish actor was dissatisfied with his career. So when the opportunity arose to play what is widely considered the greatest Shakespearean role on the greatest British stage, the vast Olivier stage at London's National Theatre, he was determined to defy the ravages of a terrible terminal illness in order to take it.
Charleson wasn't the first actor to play the Danish prince in the production. Elsinore opens in the National Theatre on Tuesday 5 September, 1989, with his predecessor in the role, Daniel Day-Lewis, fleeing the stage during Act 1 Scene 5, when Hamlet is confronted by the ghost of his murdered father. After that, Day-Lewis could not be persuaded to return.
This certainly happened, although a mythology has grown up around the incident. For years the story was that Day-Lewis had seen the ghost of his own father, the poet Cecil Day-Lewis, on stage. The actor himself claimed as much although in an interview in 2012 he clarified that he had been speaking metaphorically.
It was always the plan that Charleson would take over from Day-Lewis, having been offered the role earlier that year by director Richard Eyre. Charleson was in Eyre's 1982 production of Guys and Dolls, and the director thought very highly of him.
In fact, Charleson had already played Hamlet twice. Firstly, in Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead at London's Young Vic theatre and then in a touring production of Shakespeare’s play in 1974. But he was unhappy with his performance in the latter.
Third time round, he knew he wasn’t going to get another chance. By this time, Charleson, who had been HIV positive since 1986, had developed Aids, the most advanced stage of the infection. His close friend Sean Mathias, a theatre and film director played in the film by Matthew Beard, was among the few who knew. Mathias didn't think Charleson should play Hamlet.
"It is probably the biggest role a male actor can play," Mathias tells the BBC. "It's a hell of a thing to take on for any actor because your mind's got to go to a very dark, complex place and you've got to make these extraordinary connections between life and death.
"Then there's the physicality of the thing – you're on stage for perhaps four hours, giving mammoth monologues. I was just really worried it would precipitate his illness."
Charleson was being treated by Margaret Johnson, a young respiratory physician who had been tasked with setting up an HIV service at the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead, London. When she first met the actor, she had no idea who he was.
"I remember asking him, as I asked all patients, how he was coping and whether he had any financial problems," Johnson tells the BBC. Charleson let the concerned doctor know he was comfortably off, having cut a deal for Chariots of Fire which gave him a percentage of the profits.
In the film's version of Johnson, played by Olivia Colman, she is not thrilled about Charleson playing Hamlet. While she doesn’t expressly forbid him, it's clear she thinks such a demanding engagement is at odds with his efforts to stay healthy. In reality, Johnson had a very different approach. "I'm not someone who would ever have said to him to even consider not doing Hamlet," she says. "I would never say don’t get on with your life. I always had the view 'Who knows what’s going to happen? Let’s hope things improve'."
She says Colman in the film is very unlike her: "She comes over as a much more senior, bossy person, which I certainly wasn't. I was a very young and probably pretty naive doctor." But, she accepts that a certain amount of "poetic license" is inevitable.
When Charleson first began rehearsing with the company after Day-Lewis's sudden departure, the story was put about that he was recovering from a sinus operation, to account for his poor health. But eventually he decided, as is depicted in one of Elsinore's most moving scenes, to tell his fellow actors the truth. One by one in the film, they come up to hug him or shake his hand.
"I'd worked with Ian previously and as far as I recall, I knew he had Aids before he made his announcement to the assembled company," says Paul Jesson, who played Horatio. "That happened much as portrayed in the film and everyone was completely supportive."
Charleson gave his first performance on October 9. His face was often so swollen that it was difficult to see his eyes – the official line given to the press was still that he was recovering from an operation. Jesson says: "Andrew Scott's performance is magnificent, deeply affecting. He brilliantly embodies Ian Charleson and there were times when I thought he was Ian. The only thing I would say, and it's hardly a criticism, is that Ian was physically so much weaker than in Andrew's portrayal. He would rely on me literally to support him and by the end of a performance he hardly had the strength to lift the sword, let alone fight the duel."
Johnson recalls: "On a couple of occasions I had to ring Richard Eyre for him, when he didn't feel well enough to do it. He'd ring me and he'd say 'Please would you call him, I can't bear it'."
The suggestion in Elsinore that Charleson's coming to terms with his own mortality gave him profound insight into Hamlet’s struggles with life and death is borne out by the responses to his performance. Johnson thought it was "amazing. A lot of people think that it is one of the best Hamlets there has been". Theatre critic John Peter, in a rave review in the Sunday Times, referred to "the way Charleson can transform a production" and declared "his Hamlet is virile and forceful. He oozes intelligence from every pore".
Charleson did the role for 24 performances, his last being on Monday 13 November. Most of the audience rose in a standing ovation. Eyre wrote in his diary that it was "like watching a man who had been rehearsing for playing Hamlet all his life. He wasn’t playing the part, he became it".
Ian McKellen was also in the audience. When he was awarded the Evening Standard award for best actor the next evening, he took the opportunity to say that Charleson was a more deserving recipient.
Charleson died just a few weeks later, on 6 January 1990. He was 40. Releasing a statement about his death, his agent Michael Whitehall said of his final performance: "It was clear that he was exhausted, but his courage, not only in being on that stage but giving us the performance of his life, left our applause and cheers seeming very inadequate." He also said, in accordance with Charleson’s wishes, that he had died of Aids. It is thought to have been the first celebrity death in the UK openly attributed to the illness and it helped promote awareness of the disease.
Had he not taken the role, would he have prolonged his life? "Maybe for a few weeks," says Johnson. Scott's Charleson says in Elsinore: "I'd rather die of Hamlet than Aids."
Margaret Johnson – now Professor Margaret Johnson OBE – revolutionised patient care for people with HIV and greatly improved the quality of life for thousands. In 1992, the specialist clinic she and her team set up at the Royal Free was renamed the Ian Charleson Day Centre.
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In 1990, the Sunday Times, prompted by John Peter, set up the Ian Charleson Awards for the best classical stage performances in the UK by actors under 30. Winners this century have included Jack Lowden, Cush Jumbo and Paapa Essiedu.
Now with Elsinore, Ian Charleson's legacy has been given another fitting memorial. He is buried in Edinburgh's Portobello Cemetery. Engraved on his headstone is Horatio’s farewell to his dead friend, Hamlet: "Good night sweet prince, And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest".
Elsinore is released in US cinemas on 20 November and UK cinemas on January 29 2027.
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