[There] are two basic jokes in Tom Stoppard's Dogg's Hamlet, one for each part of the play. The first is that language is an arbitrary form of signification and therefore susceptible to humorous mutation if words are ascribed different meanings from those they normally possess. The second, which also depends upon incongruity for its effect, is that the action and famous lines of a well-known play can be made to appear quite ridiculous if stripped of all incidental substance and performed at breakneck speed. The two ideas are worked through in a nonsensical speech-day sketch, written entirely in a language Stoppard calls Dogg, and a fifteen-minute version of Hamlet performed (in English) by the pupils at the speech-day. The overall result is moderately entertaining, but not especially witty or original. Much of the humour is unexpectedly crude and banal…. Equally, spoof Shakespeare, which must have been the staple diet of every school and university revue since time immemorial, is not intrinsically very exciting. This abbreviated Hamlet only really takes off when the cast return for an encore and repeat the play in ninety seconds flat.
Colin Ludlow, "Reviews: 'Dogg's Hamlet, Cahoot's Macbeth'" (© copyright Colin Ludlow, 1979; reprinted with permission), in Plays and Players, Vol. 26, No. 11, August, 1979, p. 28.
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