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First-nighters were not disappointed. They saw a fast-moving, 3-hr.-20 min. Hamlet. When the house lights went on at the end of the play, the entire audience rose to its feet and surged down toward the stage. An immense (6 ft. tall) bouquet was sent up to the actors, who took 16 curtain calls, during the last three of which the audience chanted Scofield's name in unison. After the applause had been going on for so long that the actors felt the need to introduce some variety, they applauded the audience for their reception. Said Actor Alec Clunes, who played the king: "All through the performance the audience was very much with us. We didn't get as many laughs as we would expect to get in London, but we got many. And I suspect we got a lot of tears."
Unlike the audience. Pravda's Critic Boris Zakhava did not allow himself to be swept away. But he did call the direction "bold and bright,'' and Scofield's Hamlet "clean and honest." Editorially, Pravda called the audience enthusiasm "a demonstration of the friendly feelings of the Soviet people for the English people." The demonstration was carried on nightly at the stage door after the show in a form familiar to the West: hordes of teen-age girls descended on Scofield and mobbed him for autographs.