Former Doctor Who star David Tennant offers to bequeath his own s.k.u.l.l for use in Hamlet
It is an iconic scene that sees Hamlet lament the death of Yorick while holding his skull.
And now Scots star David Tennant has claimed he would happily bequeath his own skull to be used in productions of the famous Shakespeare play.
The star of TV shows such as Doctor Who and Broadchurch worked with a real skull in a 2008 staging of the play in which he starred as the Danish Prince mourning the dead court jester Yorick whose skull is exhumed.
Now 53, Tennant is asked on the latest episode of the Off Menu podcast if he’d leave any of his bones to theatre, and he replies: ‘I’d very happily appear again in a production of Hamlet playing a different part, yeah. There’s something glorious about that.’
Recalling his Hamlet experience, Tennant says: ‘We had a real skull.
‘We had the skull of a real human – a guy called Andre Tchaikovsky who was a classical musician who had left his skull to The Royal Shakespeare Company to appear in a production of Hamlet.
‘So I did not have to fake any weight there. I was holding Andre, he was Yorick. I was really really thrilled, not in a macabre way.
David Tennant used a real skull as a prop in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of Hamlet
André Tchaikowsky 1975 , a Polish-born musician who died in 1982 and famously bequeathed his skull to the Royal Shakespeare Company for use in Hamlet
‘That moment in the play is about connecting with mortality, so there’s no acting involved – you’re looking into the eyes of a human who once walked the Earth. There’s something very powerful about that.’
But Tennant is uncertain as to whether the RSC would take a second skull.
He said: ‘To be honest, I don’t think you can do it anymore, cos Andre had done it and left it and it had gone through all the various….there’s a lot of hoops to jump through, for various governmental organisations who perhaps frown on the idea of body parts being left to anything really other than cremation.
‘So I think the laws have now changed, that Andre is probably the last person to have been able to have done that. But his skull is still there, he can be used in future productions of Hamlet.’
