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: The Invisible Hand

I think this is the last time a trip to the Tricycle will feature the theatre's trademark red scaffolding holding up the auditorium, as it's the next venue about to get a major facelift. The seating's all going to be replaced, which may be why designer Lizzie Clachan was at liberty to get started on that a little early, reconfiguring the stalls slightly to turn the stage into a corner thrust - a prison cell that juts out into the audience, but slides gradually backwards as the play goes on and the situation gets bleaker. The Invisible Hand is set in some remote corner of Pakistan, where an obscure terrorist group opposed to the Taliban have kidnapped American banker Nick Bright (Daniel Lapaine.) He's actually a fairly minor figure in the bank, as they were really trying to abduct his boss, so the hoped-for $10 million ransom is slow in coming.

Theatre review: The Hard Problem

For Nicholas Hytner's final directing job as Artistic Director of the National, he gets one of the biggest-name writers alive to return to the stage after nine years' absence: Tom Stoppard returns to the ways academic theory interacts with people's real emotional landscapes, this time investigating the difference between the brain and the mind. We follow psychologist Hilary (Olivia Vinall) over a few years during which she keeps being troubled by the question of, if the brain is simply a collection of matter, what is consciousness, and how do we determine what has it? We first meet her as a student, and her tutor and on-off lover Spike (Big Favourite Round These Parts Damien Molony) has no doubt that the sense of self is one of many quirks of evolution, and is impatient at Hilary's more spiritual angle, that even takes in prayer. But when she gets a job with Leo (Jonathan Coy,) he encourages her interest in what is termed The Hard Problem.