Why Hamlet’s new order was not to be

Readers respond to the news that the ‘To be, or not to be’ soliloquy is to restored to its rightful place in the Barbican production of Hamlet, starring Benedict Cumberbatch. Photograph: Johan Persson/PA

I had a friend who collected weird productions of Hamlet. They included Hamlet on a plank (suspended eight feet above the action); Hamlet on roller skates; and, my favourite, a production that had twin brothers simultaneously playing the Dane, while, due to financial pressures, the same actress doubled as both Ophelia and Gertrude. Mucking about with where a speech comes? Ha!
Judith Mackinlay
Manchester

• I agree with Charlotte Higgins (Notebook: Hamlet will be what it will be, 20 August) that the whole point of previews is that things get changed. There is a saying in the north of England that sums it up: “Bairns and fools should see nowt half done”.
David Phillips
Barnard Castle, County Durham