Stars Turn Out For Benedict Cumberbatch's Hamlet Opening Night

The play has already hit the headlines thanks to one reviewer who gave her opinion about the Shakespeare production early during preview performances and Cumberbatch making a plea to fans to stop filming him while he is onstage, insisting it was a huge distraction.

But it was all positive at the Barbican theatre on Tuesday, as the Oscar nominee's famous friends gave Cumberbatch a big thumbs up after his opening night performance.

Gatiss told the BBC, "We're all very proud and impressed", while the actor's onstage mother, actress Wanda Ventham, called her co-star "a bloody good Hamlet".

And the critics appeared to like what they saw of the leading man, even if the play itself wasn't a hit - the Telegraph's Dominic Cavendish called Cumberbatch "a blazing, five-star Hamlet trapped in a middling, three-star show", while Whatsonstage.com's Michael Coveney complemented the star on his "superbly, urgently, intelligently" delivered soliloquies.

And The Guardian's Michael Billington suggested Cumberbatch could have been a great Hamlet if he wasn't "imprisoned by a dismal production".

The play continues until the end of October (15).