The Scottish Play with a Stewart

Last night, being Thursday the 27th of September, our theatre guru Mr Standing organised a trip to the Gielgud Theatre, to see William Shakespeare's Macbeth staring Patrick Stewart.

It was an interesting interpretation. Stark and very grim, set in a quazi WWI era, with most of the cast in the woollen military uniforms of that time and the witches dressed as nurses to match. It had a relatively bare stage very reminiscent of a bunker, with off-white brick walls that allowed imagery to be played across them, including swirling blood at times which was very effective. The sound effects were very threatening, being a lot of gun shots and sounds of battle, and the sets consisted of hospital gurneys transformed from bed to table and back to beds at appropriate moments. There was a lot of reuse of set pieces for different purposes and recurring imagery as you’d expect – the focus on knives being one of them of course. I especially liked the way that the witches first acted as nurses, then turned up in the kitchen preparing the meat for the feast and then were morgue attendants. Very effective.

Michael Feast as Macduff, although he started slow, really came through for me – I felt with him when he discovered his family had died, and the moment he brought in Macbeth’s head… Whoooeee! Martin Turner as Banquo was also really good as the upright man, and when he stalked along the table at the feast and stood over Macbeth with his shirt all soaked in blood I absolutely squirmed with glee! And Scott Handy as young Malcolm was very impressive too when his big moment came. I’d seen him in A Knights Tale, so his face was familiar, but I was very impressed with his containment at the beginning of the play and his deception of Macduff at their second meeting. Kate Fleetwood as Lady Macbeth was… bloodthirsty. You could feel the ambition dripping off her. She was truly creepy at times. And Patrick… what can I say? The way he moved about the stage kept your eyes fixed on him. He had a real presence, and really looked the part of the soldier in comparison to the other nobles.

All up…well, I adore Shakespeare no matter what, but whilst I admit that Macbeth isn’t one of my all time favourites, I enjoyed every minute of this production. Thank you J!