DIRECTOR John Topping is two weeks into rehearsals for York Shakespeare Project’s summer production of Hamlet in a church.

“The company seems to be enjoying the work and, really pleasingly, are as interested in playing accurately and comprehensibly as I am,” he says.

“We’re also finding the comedy in the text. Hamlet is a play about death but rehearsals with this talented and adventurous ensemble are fun.”

As predicted by What’s On ever since seeing his Touchstone in TakeOver12 Company’s As You Like It at York Theatre Royal last June, University of York second-year drama student Peter Watts will play Hamlet.

He delivered a “truly remarkable” audition, full of kicks and kisses, for the most sought-after role on the York community stage scene this year. Such news is no surprise to The Press, whose review last summer picked out Watts’s “fine comic timing, physical presence and voice honed at the National Youth Theatre”. “See him in As You Like It,” we recommended. “Like him? You’ll love him.”

Without picking out individuals, John appraises his actors. “Hamlet provides an exciting mix of roles for young and older actors. There were many talented actors at the audition and it was tough making the final call,” he says. “Helen Wilson, the assistant director, was closely involved in casting and I think we’ve got it right.”

Watts is joined by Katie Macintyre as Ophelia, selected again for the young female lead after her Desdemona in YSP’s Othello last October.

Maurice Crichton will play Claudius; Jennifer Page, Gertrude; Clive Lyons, Polonius; Daniel Hardy, Laertes; Alexander Wilson, Horatio; Bill Laverick, Francisco; Jamie Searle, Barnardo; Ben Sawyer, Marcellus; Nick Jones, Ghost; and Andy Quarrell, Rosencrantz.

Emma Dubruel, 18, will join Sawyer, Laverick, Jones and Searle in ensemble roles, including playing the Player Queen.

Adam Dindorf was to have been Guildenstern but his Guildenstern is dead because Adam has withdrawn for a film part. A new Guildenstern is required for the Rosencrantz double act; watch this space.

Now John Topping is settling into transferring his vision of Hamlet from page to stage .

“Hamlet is one of the most performed dramas ever written. Perhaps, too, it remains the most mysterious, provocative and resonant piece in Shakes-peare’s canon,” says the 63-year-old freelance theatre and opera director.

“The play is over 400 years old but its central concerns – bereavement, revenge, betrayal, action, truth, the supernatural and the meaning of life – seem as fresh as ever. The human condition doesn’t change.”

John’s significantly reduced version will cut approximately a third of the original text and will be set in the present day. “I’ll be aiming to exploit the evocative setting of St Martin-cum-Gregory Church, in Micklegate, to provide a clear, emotional and memorable theatrical experience,” he says.

“Written in the middle of Shakes-peare’s career, when he was at the height of his creative powers, Hamlet works effortlessly through many registers. Both the comic and the profane are interwoven with the celebrated poetry and fast-moving action.”

Hamlet is a revenge tragedy with bereavement at its core, says John. “It combines profound speculation about the nature of human existence with an exploration of family loyalty, love, hypocrisy, madness, identity, the supernatural, politics and, indeed, theatre itself.”

His production will run from July 18 to 20, July 24 to 27 and July 31 to August 3. Tickets will go on sale at York Theatre Royal soon.