Object of the week: The toy theatre and cut-out characters created for Laurence Olivier’s Hamlet

This toy theatre is perhaps one of the most playful and elaborately conceived pieces of film tie-in ephemera within the BFI collections, bringing together the Rank Organisation with esteemed toy theatre manufacturer Pollock’s to promote Laurence Olivier’s 1948 Hamlet.

Olivier conceived his film as a psychological drama, filmed in black-and-white using expressionistic lighting, deep focus photography and deliberately austere sets. It was a commercial and critical success, winning Oscars for Best Picture (the first British film to do so), Actor, Costume Design and Art Direction.

Produced in booklet form for purchase at half a crown, the Hamlet toy theatre continues and – through the ‘new’ medium of film – updates the long Victorian tradition of the toy theatre and the printed sheets which featured illustrations of well-known actors in popular productions of the time. These had a dual purpose: to be cut out as toys for children (and sometimes adults) or to be kept intact as souvenirs.

Whereas other Pollock’s theatres traditionally use hand-drawn illustration for their characters, this version creates its cut-out figures from tinted photographs of the film’s stars. Their bright colours are designed to stand out against the black-and-white backdrops, which were specially executed for the toy theatre by Hamlet’s costume and production designer Roger Furse.

So, to play or not to play? As to be expected, the BFI National Archive’s version is beautifully intact, but one person who did cut up his Hamlet toy theatre booklet was the nine-year-old Ian McKellen who received a copy for Christmas. This gave him his first experience of performing Shakespeare where, he recalls, “I did my first Shakespeare in our lounge in Wigan […] sliding Sir Laurence onto wire and waggling him at a petite Jean Simmons – me doing both voices.”

McKellen’s account captures the imaginative possibilities that toy theatres offer in miniature form. Pollock’s theatres have provided an early training ground for many others too: famous fans include Ralph Fiennes and Andrew Lloyd Webber. And what better start to a career than to direct some of the biggest stars of the time, with sets provided by the finest talents in the business?

Produced with the support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.