I had a road to Damascus moment this weekend. It hit me on Saturday night at about 8pm in a darkened room. Sounds dramatic? It was. Literally.

Let's be clear so you can stop worrying- I have not suddenly found the good Lord (which comes as quite a relief to me) - this was a revelation about someone's writing - something much relevant to what makes me tick.

I finally got Hamlet.

You know. The play. That one by Shakespeare.

As anyone who knows me or has taught with me or has been taught by me will testify, I will often declare in a mutter, 'I fucking hate Shakespeare. Shakespeare and poetry. Meh. Get over it. Move on. Write a fucking paragraph.'

It's not that I didn't understand that there was some beautiful language in the man from Stratford's plays and it's not that I didn't understand the stories; I could see both of those things quite clearly - they just didn't touch me. It was all a bit out of date for me- I'm a Stephen King girl and proud of it.

And then along came Saturday. And blimey, did I change my mind.

@Elliottbeth (see mac-buying escapade) text me last week to see if I fancied going to a preview of Hamlet with Jude Law in the lead and her BFF Kevin McNally as Claudius and then go for some wine. To be fair, it was the word 'wine' that grabbed my attention rather than 'Hamlet'. I had a slight internal wince when she said the performance was about 3 hours long, but I stuck with the image of the wine glass and some giggles with my new fab friend and hopped on the train in the glorious sunshine.

We grabbed some food, had a natter and then wended our way to the Donmar to fight our way to our seats. As the theatre darkened, I let out a little sigh and fully expected to be wriggling in my seat and examining the lighting rig within twenty minutes.

And then the play started.

The problem I'm going to have from here on in is not to sound like some gushy American, (apologies to all non-gushy Americans, and in fact to any gushy Americans who buy my books), but even four days after the event I can get tingles thinking about it.

It was fucking brilliant. End of. The set was beautiful and the performances were outstanding. Jude Law was a totally breath-taking revelation (and I speak as one who was firmly in the Clive Owen camp in Closer) who owned the stage throughout, and the supporting cast of Claudius, Gertrude and Polonius put in exceptional performances that kept me gripped.

I've read Hamlet, studied it and taught it until the mere mention of that word could cause me to sick up a little in my mouth, so the turnaround in my opinion has more to do with the actors and director of this version than the words themselves. But it was the words that they breathed life into. Words that I'd thought were dead and done and had their day.

Suddenly, as the action unfolded, I could clearly see the arcs of every character and the damage they did to themselves and each other as the tragedy unfolded. Each performance was so well-drawn that even when it was revealed that characters such as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, normally just the butt for a Tom Stoppard joke, were dead, my breath hitched a little. Every nuance in the language was clear, and the layers in the story filled the stage. During Claudius' prayer scene, my heart ached for this man who was tormented by his self-awareness, a feeling that only served to make his cold brutality more chilling. The 'to be or not to be' speech, delivered in drifting snow, was astounding. Jude Law IS Hamlet in my head now.

When the interval came and the curtain lifted, I couldn't believe an hour and a half had passed. I looked at @elliottbeth and saw my own somewhat dumbfounded expression staring back at me from her face. I think we both muttered 'Fucking hell, it's brilliant,' which was about all we could manage. The second half was equally so, and if it hadn't been for @elliottbeth's stomach launching into a loud grumble in the last five minutes...I think I might have cried.

I suddenly saw the passion of the play. The interplay between the characters, the mix of hate and love and self-loathing that brought them all to their ultimate conclusions. The cynical weariness of the old, versus the hot-headed passion of the young, and the parallels between the two.

I came out of the theatre feeling an urge to write something brilliant and beautiful about characters people would care about and feel for. I'd been inspired by Shakespeare. It was real; it was alive, and it still mattered. I felt like I'd watched a perfect movie. I wanted to talk about it to everyone I knew. I wanted to write a screenplay rather than a book, something I could create the bones of and then a group of other people could bring to life in the flesh and blood way that Hamlet had been brought to life by the people on that stage for me.

Like I said. Road to Damascus and all that.

This blog wasn't supposed to be a kind of review, but it's somehow turned out that way. It was supposed to be about how I'd suddenly seen the point of Shakespeare and how I wish I could have found it earlier, when I was teaching or starting out in writing, or even when I was at school. It was supposed to be about the enduring nature of good characterisation and gripping plots. It was supposed to be calm, cool and rational analysis of brilliant writing suddenly discovered.

Sorry about that. Sorry that I've rambled, but maybe that's all you can do when you're hit with something that changes the whole way you think about something. Maybe those kind of emotions can't be expressed clinically. Maybe they can just be felt.

Before I go off and try to crystallise this inspiration, I'd like to end with an apology and a thank you. Firstly, apologies to you Mr. Shakespeare, late of Stratford and the Globe. I know you're dead and everything, but sorry for being so dismissive about your stuff. I take it all back (well, about Hamlet at least...let's start slowly). But better late than never, eh?

Secondly, a huge and heartfelt thanks to the director and cast of this production of Hamlet for sharing their brilliance with me, and bringing something so long dead so vividly to life. I owe you. You rock.

Me x