Anirban Bhattacharya is in a Shakespeare adaptation spree and looks like the actor-filmmaker will go the Vishal Bharadwaj way and churn up Shakespeare as much as possible.
After he came with his own directorial ‘Mandaar’, which was adapted from Macbeth, he went on to be the creative director of two other adaptations, from Othello and Romeo & Juliet. He even played the lucrative role of Iago in the Othello one and there is a possibility that he will have a role in ‘Talmar Romeo Juliet’ as well.
But are we going to have an adaptation of Hamlet as well? ‘Hamlet’ is without any doubt regarded as one of the best works by the bard and it has huge appreciation world wide. Vishal Bharadwaj did a terrific job with its adaptation ‘Haider’ and it is curious how he could craft Indian politics and the Shakespearean insanity together to bring a story like never before. Anirban Bhattacharya and the Hoichoi classics, have done the Bengalification of these stories as much as possible.
But adapting the play Hamlet will be a rather difficult job. With Vishal Bharadwaj’s precedence, it will be very easy for the critics to draw comparison. So they went the right way with Mandaar to take some creative liberty and change the story a bit. This can be done for Hamlet too. And the track record suggests that there will be a Hamlet adaptation very soon.