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For the past month, after every performance of Hamlet, Benedict Cumberbatch has been making little speeches during the curtain call. He asks the audience members to donate to Save the Children, and he’s arranged for Save the Children buckets (or whatever) to be arranged around the theater and they’ve raised more than $150,000. He’s been using those speeches to talk about the European refugee crisis and how appalled he is that Britain is only taking in 20,000 refugees. On Thursday night, Benedict did the same, only he added a new bit. Apparently, he shouted “f—k the politicians!”

Benedict Cumberbatch surprised theater-goers by saying “f*** the politicians” during an impassioned on-stage speech about Europe’s refugee crisis, audience members told NBC News Friday. The Oscar-nominated star had just finished a performance of “Hamlet” at London’s Barbican Centre when he criticized the British government.

“He stayed at the front and gestured for silence,” said Charlotte Fletcher, a 25-year-old public relations worker who was in the audience on Tuesday. “He burst into this magnificent monologue about Syrian refugees, about how they are all fathers, mothers, daughters and sons, just like us.”

Cumberbatch then attacked plans by the U.K. government to accept 20,000 refugees over the next five years, a figure condemned as too meager by opposition lawmakers and campaigners.

“Then he just shouted, ‘F*** the politicians!’” Fletcher told NBC News. “It was a wonderful moment. It was very impassioned and from the heart. It was amazing to see an actor just being so impassioned and raw.”

Another audience member, Rachel Martin, who is from London and in her 50s, described the speech as “so moving.”

“The show was fantastic but you left in tears after his speech,” she told NBC News. “It was very eloquent, emotional and beautifully put … He gave a four-letter word to the politicians and said, ‘We’ve got to do something about it.’”

Both audience members said the speech went down well and was received by rapturous applause. However, Fletcher added: “The parents next to me had two young-teenage children and I think they were a bit taken aback!”

[From NBC News]

Sure. I mean, I’m not going to sit here and claim that I’ve never said similar things or much worse things about American politicians. And while I understand that there is a vital and important context to Bendy’s words, how does “f—k the politicians” really help anything? I get the frustration, for sure. I applaud him for trying to do something, anything to help. But… “f—k the politicians”? Really?

Photos courtesy of WENN, Fame/Flynet.
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