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Holocaust survivor's skull used by RSC in Hamlet
26 November 2008
A skull used by Doctor Who actor David Tennant in the Royal Shakespeare Company's (RSC's) production of Hamlet was real, according to reports.Concert pianist Andre Tchaikowsky was smuggled out of Poland during his childhood and died of cancer in 1982 aged 46.
He bequeathed the skull to the RSC as part of his will in the hope it would be used on stage.
The skull had previously been used as a prop in rehearsals but not in front of an audience as no actor has felt comfortable enough with it.
However, in the RSC's recent production of Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon, David Tennant used the skull in more than 20 performances.
David Howells, curator of the RSC archive, said: "In 1989 Mark Rylance rehearsed with it for quite a while, but he couldn't get past the fact it wasn't Yorick's, it was Tchaikowsky's."
Greg Doran, director of the production, the it was not revealed as a real skull until after the production had finished its run as he thought it would "topple the play".
The production moves to the Novello Theatre in London in December.
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