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Last night, I had the pleasure of attending the English Touring Theatre production of Macbeth at the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford as part of its UK tour.
The show itself was filled with many great moments that worked so well with the themes and topics displayed in Macbeth - where other moments felt as though they maybe didn’t quite fit.
This is a fresh, modern take on Shakespeare’s classic tragedy, and this comes with both its benefits and its drawbacks.
I enjoyed much of the up-to-date style, bringing in the use of technology to enhance the performance. The aspect of the security cameras being projected onto the walls I thought were very clever and it did keep me interested with my eyes darting from the cast to the live feed. This made great use for when the character of Macbeth would hallucinate things, with some clever projection design by Will Duke.
Director, Richard Twyman has clearly poured many a brilliant idea into this production, but I feel that for a well known Shakespeare play - too much has changed and this tampers with the feel and telling of the story.
The design of the show is wonderful, and nothing bad can be said of such. Scenery pushes the modern feel to the production whilst giving the performers a varied playground of scenic elements to fit the scene whether in the castle, or out in Birnam Wood. This gives a great feel to ‘Macbeth’ as you can really immerse yourself in particular moments throughout.
I especially loved the witches scene which has now moved to later in the play than in the opening but I thought it was portrayed perfectly to allow the right amount of mystery and creepiness that the witches bring whilst not actually seeing them on the stage.
Other great moments included the “is this a dagger” scene as well as the scene with Macbeth in the woods, with the projections of trees and wildlife all around him - as well as many other scenes throughout the performance.
There were a couple of moments, for me, which just did not seem to fit in with the piece. There were two instances in which the performers interact with the audience and to me they felt out of place. How is one supposed to fear Macbeth who mid-way through his descent into madness, he comes into the auditorium to choose an audience member to sit at his banquet. If this was advertised as a comic retelling of ‘Macbeth’ then I believe this would sit better in my mind, however as it is not - I don’t feel that this was quite right.
Another instance in which I did question the choice was at the point where Malcolm now sings ‘Yes Sir I can Boogie’ by Baccara… But I am willing to look past these moments as the many other parts of the fresh take on the show was enjoyable.
The performances by the cast were lovely.
Mike Noble plays a great ‘Macbeth’ playing each word with emotion and power, from Noble’s performance we see his cowardly side grow into confidence as Macbeth slowly but surely descends into madness throughout the play.
I particularly enjoyed Laura Elsworthy’s portrayal of Lady Macbeth who dominates her husband at the beginning of the play and very clearly orchestrates his every move. Elsworthy does a stellar job of this and really stands out with her masterful performance.
The cast is made up of 9 very strong performers who can speak Shakespeare verses with passion and emotion, and as this was a production in association with Northern Stage, many had a Northern accent too, which I greatly appreciated probably more than most in the Yvonne Arnaud.
Overall, this is a completely unique and exciting take on the classic tragedy of ‘Macbeth’ and although some of Twyman’s ideas did not quite work at certain points through the play, many of them did and created a very good, new experience for fans of the play, new audiences and young people studying the text to watch and enjoy!
You can catch ‘Macbeth’ by English Touring Theatre on their current UK Tour which is coming to a close fairly soon, so make sure you see it whilst you can!
20th February 2024
Robbie’s Backstage Bants