Seeing Shakespeare through Japanese eyes
Director Yukio Ninagawa brings his own take on Hamlet to Scotland this week, writes Ben Walters

For a land and culture often deemed to be enigmatic and unknowable, Japanese treatments of Shakespeare can be surprisingly illuminatory experiences. From Akira Kurosawa’s King Lear-based film, Ran, to the RSC’s Japan-flavoured production of Coriolanus last year, the land of the rising sun and England’s bard have proved to be intriguing bedfellows.