ANEZKA KHAN reviews Grand Theft Hamlet (2024), a British documentary by Pinny Grylls and Sam Crane.
“To be or not to be. That is the question.” Sam Crane echoes the words of Shakespeare’s most tragic hero before accidentally setting himself alight by standing on a fire pit. Is this not emblematic of Hamlet’s gravest hamartia? A self-inflicted, accidental wound occurring during literature’s most famous quote on indecisiveness. Not even the bard himself could have imagined such a metaphor.
Grand Theft Hamlet (2024) is a documentary film following two out-of-work actors, Sam Crane and Mark Oosterveen, who discover an unlikely outlet to cope with the impact of Covid-19’s lockdown. Immersing themselves in the proxy universe of Rockstar Games’ Grand Theft Auto V to pass the time, they seek to question the boundaries between fiction and reality—can their “real” and “fake” worlds intersect?
Screen-recorded entirely on the open-map streets of Grand Theft Auto V, Crane and Oosterveen explore the unhinged possibility of staging Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Grand Theft Hamlet delves into the ups and downs of directing, producing, casting, table reading, rehearsing, staging, location scouting, prop sourcing, and performing a Shakespearean play entirely within a virtual reality game. In the process, they completely deconstruct notions of “highbrow” vs “lowbrow” entertainment. In Grand Theft Hamlet, the two realms of culture intersect, and it is the mere possibility of this intersection which drives the entire project.
Crane and Oosterveen align the “highbrow” practice of thespianism with the “lowbrow” practice of gaming by presenting the interests at hand as one and the same. By proposing that the barbarity of modern street crime in GTA V is no different from the savage underbelly of civil society depicted in Shakespearean theatre, any suggestion of elitism in its subject matter becomes patently absurd. They instead seek to prove that the only separation between a performer of ancient theatre and a video-game player lies in the tools they are given.
Hilarity ensues as first-time gamers repeatedly get “wasted” due to their lack of understanding of the game, while first-time actors become so engrossed in their sporadic gaming habits that they struggle to perform in serious, theatrical moments. Other glitches make for comical moments, such as the accidental massacre of the entire cast and audience. Accompanied by elaborate avatar skins, the crime-ridden Los Santos backdrop, and unpredictable NPC interference, Grand Theft Hamlet delivers a consistently well-rounded comedy. Yet, elements of Shakespeare’s tragedy are felt in moments of unexpected rawness and poignancy, which consistently peek through the comedy. All the players are unified by one thing: a shared desire for company during a troubling time. Everyone is there because they want to be.

It would be difficult to elaborate on this poignancy without discussing ParTeb. Through spontaneous flips, tricks, emotes, and incoherent rumbles, we come to understand him as a gamer who stumbles upon Crane and Oosterveen by chance. He is half-Finnish and half-Tunisian, yet only ever appears to us as a naked, green alien. He disappears as spontaneously as he arrives. He isn’t familiar with Shakespeare. Crane and Oosterveen urge him to audition anyway, and after much back and forth, he begins by reciting: “Auzubillah Minashaitan Nirajeem”. The company is silent. He goes on to recite the rest of a surah from the Quran. It is an unexpected moment, yet it shouldn’t be. After all, ParTeb, though green as he is, is as human as any of us—and with as much potential of providing a moving performance.
We might expect little of ParTeb’s viridescence and erratic mannerisms; his non-actor status or (in his own words) “poor” English. Perhaps we expect little because he is a gamer. Yet, I would venture to suggest that this recitation is more powerful than any Shakespearean soliloquy we see in the film, regardless of whether we can understand the Arabic or not. Notions of what makes a composition “highbrow” are deconstructed as they come face to face with performances outside the constraints of the Western canon. Crane and Oosterveen’s quest of trying to find thespians among gamers might have begun as a joke, but it becomes a serious exploration of what it truly means to be either.
Mark Oosterveen adds a secondary layer of commentary: what it means to be “real” in a “fake” world. Their passion project is threatened when Dipo Ola quits the role of Hamlet in favour of a “real” acting job. Oosterveen suggests that Crane (and filmmaker Pinny Grylls) might be content with scrapping the venture, having a marriage and kids together outside of the game—but he has no such thing. Earlier in the film, he had shared that after a recent bereavement, he was the only surviving member of his family. By arguing that Grylls and Crane were using the game as light-hearted distraction from real life, he opens up the question: can a “fake” venture be meaningful in a “real” way? An amusing “what are we even doing?” moment ensues, before they both return to the idea that if something can produce a “real” emotion, it is, in fact, as “real” as anything can be.
Another notable example is the lovers quarrel between Crane and Grylls which occurs towards the end of the film. Grylls quips that they live in the same house, yet predominantly interact in-game due to Crane’s uninterrupted playing. They argue over the fact that Crane had forgotten Grylls’ birthday. While this is an extreme example of neglecting the “real” in favour of the “fake”, their argument dissipates as they find comedy in their character skins and NPC meddling. Here, the “fake” is used to erase the gravity of a “real” situation, and they both eventually log off. The conversation might have been staged, but the point remains the same—there is a strict balance between the “fake” and the “real”, one which must be carefully teetered. The “fake” must always have a positive effect on the “real”.
By all accounts, Crane, Grylls, and Oosterveen present a well-rounded deconstruction of societal binaries. They meld concepts of “high” and “low”, “fake” and “real”, “to be” or “not to be”. The use of a virtual setting proves perfect as, arguably, such can only be accomplished in a space free from convention. The film is not only a reliable time capsule of Covid-19’s lockdown, but also a unique case of isolation turned to human connection, revealing truths that the filmmakers likely never sought to unveil. Grand Theft Hamlet is a symbol of resilience in unstable times, highlighting the importance of open-mindedness—and a willingness to indulge in fun.
Featured image courtesy of Hyde Park Picture House.