Letter: Weak whats?

IT IS just possible that first-night nerves caused Kenneth Branagh to say that old men had 'most weak hands' in Act II, Scene 2 of Hamlet ('The Critics', 20 December). Irving Wardle should know that what Shakespeare wrote, and we both heard John Gielgud say, was 'most weak hams' - which makes much more sense. He also gazed at the legs of Polonius, rather than his hands.

Lord McCarthy

House of Lords

London, SW1