Theatre review: Macbeth (ETT / Lyric Hammersmith)

Déjà vu at the Lyric Hammersmith, which hasn't seen such a burst of European Director's Theatre-style expressionism since the Sean Holmes years, but makes up for it with English Touring Theatre's take on Macbeth: Richard Twyman throws everything except the nudity and the food-fighting (I'd say the kitchen sink but there is one of those) at the story of Scotland emerging from war only for the king to be assassinated and his successor to throw the country into tyranny and chaos. In a production the projections tell us is divided into three parts, Home, Kingdom and Nation, we begin with a very domestic Macbeth in which Lady Macbeth (Lois Chimimba) opens the show in a luxurious but clinical modern apartment, listening to a voice note from her husband.

Stage-to-screen review: Macbeth (See-Saw Films)

Once again a quiet August sees me throw a few screen versions of stage plays into the mix, and as the 2015 version of Macbeth is about to expire on Netflix I thought if I was going to bother with it at all I'd better get on with it. Set very much in the grubby middle ages of the story's inspiration, Justin Kurzel's film opens with the titular couple burying a child, so we can get that particular clichéd misreading of the text out of the way early on. To be fair this is only really offered as an explanation for Lady Macbeth's (Marion Cotillard) actions, as Macbeth's (Michael Fassbender) seem very much motivated by PTSD and the general bloody ruthlessness of the times: The action properly begins with the gruesome battle he leads to victory; it's actually during the battle that he first spots the three witches (who are seemingly Romulans?) who'll eventually prophesy his rise to the throne of Scotland.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Dock X & tour)

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Donmar Warehouse)

Completing the pair of returning 60th Anniversary Doctor Who stars leading West End shows, David Tennant gets to do his Macbeth at the Donald and Margot Warehouse. And while this is undoubtedly a more successful evening than the one Catherine Tate's lumbered herself with, I also came out of it thinking it could have been scarier. Aside from the star casting of Tennant and Cush Jumbo as Lady Macbeth, the big selling point of Max Webster's production is the use of binaural technology: The sound design that gives the audience, who wear headphones, a 3D audio experience. I've seen a couple of shows that have used it before, which is why I thought this story of witches and murders might be in for a particularly creepy take when you can potentially have spooky noises creep up on people in the seeming safety of their seats.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Shakespeare's Globe)

The Globe's latest Macbeth comes courtesy of director Abigail Graham, who casts Max Bennett as the Scottish nobleman whose prowess on the battlefield earns him extra honours. But thanks to a prophecy from three witches, he expects even more: They promised him the throne, and spurred on by his wife he decides not to wait and see if fate will make the prophecy true, but instead murders the King and takes his place straight away. Compared to most recent Globe productions Graham's doesn't play around with gender with quite as much gleeful abandon, but we still get a Queen instead of a King - Tamzin Griffin's Queen Duncan comes across as a capable but uninspiring leader, who brushes over the fact that she's said Macbeth and Banquo (Fode Simbo) were equally important to the military victory, but only actually rewarded the former.

Theatre review: Macbeth / Partners of GreatnessThe Faction / Wilton's Music Hall & Tour

The Faction are another established Fringe company whose work I've been following for many years - predating this blog, so I'm kind of going on memory to say I think I first encountered them with an all-male Macbeth. Director Mark Leipacher's new take on the Scottish Play goes for gender parity, although that's mainly because it uses only two actors: Macbeth / Partners of Greatness cuts down the cast to just the titular character and his wife, telling the story entirely from their perspective. The latter has been renamed Bellona, after the line early on calling Macbeth "Bellona's bridegroom," so perhaps the idea is to posit her as the more bloodthirsty of the pair, as a literal Roman war deity. Either that or it's a reference to Lidl's own-brand version of Kinder Bueno, given some of the things that happen later on in the show I'm not sure we can discount anything entirely.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Shakespeare's Globe / Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank)

A familiar annual feature at Shakespeare's Globe has been the Playing Shakespeare With Deutsche Bank production created specially for schools, which gives away thousands of free tickets to students. Its popularity has seen it become increasingly open to general audiences, and after a couple of past productions were made available online during lockdown, this year's has been given an additional few weeks' run after the school parties have seen it. The fact that the shows are heavily edited meant that for the first time ever I felt able to risk a standing ticket among the groundlings without too much fear of putting my back out, so after over a decade seeing most shows at the Globe I finally got to be right at the front of the action, where Rose Revitt's design has added a deep thrust into the yard. As these shows are tied to the school curriculum I don't remember it ever being anything other than Macbeth or Romeo & Juliet, and the fact that this thrust is a blasted heath is a clue as to whose turn it is.

Theatre review: The Tragedy of Macbeth (Almeida)

Yaël Farber has in the past few years added herself to a fairly exclusive club, considering how undiscerning my theatre bookings can seem: Creatives who are widely lauded but I've never seen the appeal of, to the point that I eventually decided just to skip their future work altogether. This is inevitably a rule I keep finding exceptions for, and in a year that's been short of major event theatre for obvious reasons, her new take on The Tragedy of Macbeth has, thanks to the London stage debut of Saoirse Ronan (I don't watch many films but I'm assured she's a Famous,) become such a hot ticket that the Almeida introduced a Byzantine new booking process especially for it. It also doesn't seem quite as risky a booking as some - one of my problems with Farber is the lack of any discernible sense of humour, and that's not often much of an issue where this play's concerned. James McArdle plays Macbeth, the Scottish warrior lord whose prowess in battle sees him promoted by King Duncan (William Gaunt).

Stage-to-screen review: Macbeth (Shakespeare's Globe / Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank)

Playing Shakespeare is the Globe and Deutsche Bank's annual education programme tying in with the GCSE curriculum, creating 90-minute productions aimed at teenagers. Tickets are exclusively given free to schools, and while it's not entirely impossible for regular audience members to get hold of them - I know people who've raved about past productions' playful, irreverent tone - I've never managed to get round to one. Now this year's production, which played in February and March just before the theatres closed, is the latest addition to the Globe's online offerings on YouTube. Ekow Quartey plays the title role in Cressida Brown's modern dress production of Macbeth, as the previously loyal Scottish general whose ambition is fired up by a supernatural prophecy, kills the king and steals his throne, only to find that having unleashed his inner darkness he becomes a tyrant with enemies everywhere.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse)

Michelle Terry’s summer season at the Globe was the first time the venue didn’t have an official overall theme for the year, but for her first winter at the Swanamaker she has two: She’s split her season into two themed “festivals” starting with “Ambitious Fiends,” looking at power and corruption, with an optional supernatural element. That option is taken and really played with in the opening production: The candlelit playhouse has been open for a few years now so I find it a bit surprising that this is its first Macbeth, a play thought to have been written with this kind of theatre in mind. Indeed, given it’s notoriously an enthusiastic rimjob on James I, there’s a popular theory that the mirror that displays the line of kings in Act IV scene 1 would have once ended up reflecting the actual king in an intimate setting. Robert Hastie doesn’t have any royalty to play with, unless you count the theatrical royalty of Terry herself as Lady Macbeth, with real-life husband Paul Ready as her on-stage husband.

Theatre review: Macbeth (RSC / RST & Barbican)

Christopher Eccleston has spent so much time recently vocally trying to disassociate himself from Doctor Who that it's hard to remember he's ever done anything else. His latest role sees him return to the stage, for the first time at the RSC, to play the title role in Macbeth. As so often happens with Shakespeare plays (especially those on the syllabus) multiple productions have arrived at the same time, and this one coincides with the critically-panned version at the National. Well, Polly Findlay's production is infinitely more watchable than Rufus Norris', but in some ways is just as problematic. Right from the opening, Findlay and designer Fly Davis show they're not short of interesting ideas, as the audience enters to find King Duncan (David Acton) asleep in his bed, a trio of little girls looking on. These are the witches whose prophecies will turn the tide of the story when Macbeth and Banquo (Raphael Sowole) encounter them soon after a battle.

Theatre review: Macbeth (National Theatre & tour)

Remember when Anne-Marie Duff was best known as Fiona from Shameless, rather than as a harbinger of dodgy plays? Me neither.

Duff and Rory Kinnear were paired up as the Macbeths in a scene for the RSC’s 2016 Shakespeare celebration special, but it’s the National that’s brought them together again for a full production. Much has been made of the fact that this Macbeth is Rufus Norris’ first time directing Shakespeare in 25 years, and only his second ever, an admission that’s inevitably come back to haunt a production whose negative critical reaction has been hard to miss, even if you try to avoid reviews and spoilers. Coming in with low expectations can sometimes mean you’re pleasantly surprised, and I guess at least we can say that Duff hasn’t landed herself in something quite as unwatchable as Common again (Ian and I both actually came back after the interval this time.) Norris has moved the play’s setting from mediaeval Scotland to a post-apocalyptic near future where supplies are scarce and gangs in makeshift armour fight over what’s left.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Ninagawa Company)

The much-loved Japanese theatre director Yukio Ninagawa died last year, not long after reviving his signature 1987 production of Macbeth, which was the one that made his name in this country. So it was a natural choice of tribute to him to tour that production internationally again. An all-Japanese cast is led by Masachika Ichimura as Macbeth, the Scottish nobleman instrumental in crushing a rebellion, and showered with honours for it. But a supernatural vision has promised him even more power, and once he shares his ambitions with his wife (Yuko Tanaka) he commits himself to speeding up the process – by murdering the king, framing the heirs, and assuming the throne himself. But ill-gotten power is hard to hold on to, and as armies build to depose him, his paranoia leads him back to the witches, and more deliberately misleading prophecies.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Shakespeare's Globe)

Emma Rice's first season at the Globe is called "Wonder," as in "I wonder where all the shows have gone?" I feel like I've barely set foot in there this summer yet, but in fact I'm nearing the end of the main season. The last of the three shows that make up the majority of the summer schedule is Iqbal Khan's take on Macbeth. Like Rice herself and Caroline Byrne he's been given free rein to break out of the venue's old house style, and like them he gets mixed results. When the Scottish king Duncan (Sam Cox) rewards his best general Macbeth (Ray Fearon,) he little imagines he will take these new honours and seek out much greater ones: A supernatural apparition has foretold to Macbeth that he will be the next king, and his wife is keen for him to speed up the process with a spot of regicide.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Young Vic)

When Carrie Cracknell directed Medea at the National, Lucy Guerin's choreography was singled out as a major part of the production's atmosphere. Now, for Macbeth at the Young Vic, Cracknell and Guerin share equal directing credit as they attempt to fully integrate dance with Shakespeare's text. Macbeth (John Heffernan) is the star general in Duncan's (Nicholas Burns) Scottish army, but an encounter with three witches feeds his ambitions and makes him impatient to take the throne himself. He and his wife (Anna Maxwell Martin) goad each other into a plot to kill Duncan in his sleep and take his kingdom. They succeed, but as with so many Shakespearean kings he finds power hard to wield. Soon he's arranging more murders to cover up the way he came to the throne, and to quash any new threats.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio / Globe to Globe)

After Richard III, the second and final Globe to Globe of the 2015 season is also from China, although this time the language is Cantonese. The Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio company from Hong Kong have created a stylised version of Macbeth, the story of a Scottish lord who learns from a supernatural source that he's destined to become king. Egged on by his wife, he decides to speed the process up by murdering King Duncan and, when the immediate heirs flee the country, is indeed crowned himself. Although it's one of the Shakespeare plys I'm most familiar with, I do like to be sitting where I can easily see the captions, because international adaptations don't always follow the plot that strictly. There might have been an exchange programme with Richard III (Macbeth's witches somehow ended up in that play earlier this summer) or an incident from a completely different Shakespeare play turning up in Dunsinane.

Theatre review: Macbeth of Fire and Ice

It's been a Macbeth kind of year, and the latest is a cut-down version playing at the Arcola's main house. Director Jon Gun Thor has retitled his version Macbeth of Fire and Ice, apparently to suggest an Icelandic influence, although it might be more in the hope of confused Game of Thrones fans buying a ticket by accident. The idea is that a suggestion of Norse mythology is seen in turning the Weird Sisters into versions of the Fates, weaving lines suspended around the stage like a cobweb. The other major visual theme is of mixed martial arts, because I know kung fu's the first thing I think of if you mention Iceland. In black hoodies and trackie bottoms, six actors cast for their kicking ability play all the roles, differentiating between the characters through the medium of not differentiating between the characters.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Shakespeare's Globe)

Like many an actor, Eve Best wants to branch out into directing, and following her Beatrice at Shakespeare's Globe she'd had discussions about making that the venue for her directing debut. Apparently she'd imagined being given one of the comedies so when Dominic Dromgoole offered her Macbeth it was a surprise, but one she's embraced - although her interest in staging something lighter in the space is always apparent. It's only three years since the Globe staged Macbeth, in Lucy Bailey's production that embraced the play's dark magic to the point of revealing it as a Faustian story, complete with design straight out of Dante's Inferno. With that in recent memory it's wise of Best to go in a different direction, and she certainly does, making this one of the lightest takes on the play you're likely to see in a long while, embracing the surprisingly frequent opportunities for comedy, and she succeeds just about as well as it's possible to with this interpretation - though it's one with inherent problems.

Theatre review: Macbeth (Trafalgar Studios)

A slew of big-name productions are on their way to the West End this spring, starting with James McAvoy as Macbeth. Following the example of Michael Grandage, director Jamie Lloyd has launched his own production company with a residency at a London theatre. They're calling the season Trafalgar Transformed as designer Soutra Gilmour has turned Trafalgar Studio 1 into a traverse, with the first few rows of seating moved onto the stage, which has been raised a few feet. From my usual perspective of the (comparatively) cheap seats at the back this reconfiguration is a success - the stadium seating means sightlines have always been good, but coupled with the small stage make the view from the gods feel very disconnected. Bringing the stage a bit closer and surrounding it with audience gives a bit more of a sense of intimacy to a sometimes soulless space.