In the English Touring Theatre’s production of Macbeth, it is not just the bodies on stage that are mangled. Shakespeare’s blood-drenched tale of fate, ambition and the supernatural is lopped and hewed by director Richard Twyman. Vanished are the expository opening scenes and, ruefully, the three weird sisters whose lines are haphazardly dealt out to the slimmed down cast like a pack of tarot cards. Fusing domestic soap opera with avant-garde direction, the result is a jarring collage of styles and soundscapes. Macduff’s observation that ‘Confusion now hath made his masterpiece’ is turned, by Twyman, into an aesthetic.
The production starts at a dramatic apex: a grief-stricken Lady Macbeth (Lois Chimimba) is putting a babygrow into a bin bag when she receives a voice note from her husband recounting his august destiny. Sentimentality stops; dark murderous thoughts seethe. Such dissonances, tonally and psychologically, are frequent. But most problematic is the fact that there is no build-up or rising action. A crucial scene in the play (Act 1, Scene 5) is needlessly thrown away by placing it at the opening when the audience are yet to feel invested in the characters.
As Macbeth, Alex Austin cuts an oddly sprightly figure for Shakespeare’s tyrant king. His young and feathery voice lacks the necessary cracked, rough tones of brute experience and majesty. He inhabits the stage as if in a dream, passively thrown into scenes and forced to improvise. Where is his fervent lust for power, so palpable that he is willing to ruthlessly murder his kinsmen? Austin conveys compelling chemistry with Lady Macbeth but even this is undercut when he says ‘She should have died hereafter’ as if it were a punchline.
A few brilliant performances provide moments of clarity. Gabriel Akuwudike proved himself to be an impeccable Shakespearean actor, delivering crisp verse with the ease of breathing. His Banquo was a kind-hearted pillar of integrity and a devoted father; why he was later doubled as Seyton, replete with Halloween devil horns, remains a mystery. Similarly impressive was Sophie Stone who brought BSL to the production, playing Ross and the Hell Porter with cheeky charisma and an impressive ability to flit between pathos and innuendo laden humour.
The backdrop for these bumpy theatrical shenanigans was hard to grasp. Repeatedly referred to as a castle, Basia Binkowska’s set resembled a glassy office in a skyscraper. A more traditional turret room was retained yet it comprised a bathroom-cum-kitchen with a gleaming selection of knives. CCTV – that old director’s favourite – also makes an appearance, bringing its characteristic ability to suggest claustrophobia and surveillance, themes the production does little to develop. It is, however, put to more interesting use, and helps orientate the audience, when it eerily registers Banquo’s spectral presence at the banquet.
At the end of the production, smatterings of giggles could be heard in the stalls as the tyrannical monarch was floored by Macduff (a warlike Ammar Haj Ahmad). This was no high moment of tragedy but a farcical scene in which a man who had incidentally found himself the ruler of Scotland was exposed as an ineffectual fraud. To watch it was like seeing a fight between boxers in starkly different weight categories; the reedy Macbeth was taken out within seconds by Macduff, all burliness and muscle. Shakespeare’s great warrior known by the epithet ‘Brave Macbeth’ was nowhere to be seen. The result was damage to the logic of the plot since it is Macbeth’s military prowess that initially wins him promotion to Thane of Cawdor and is the key to his political ascendancy.
The English Touring Theatre can certainly claim to have created something novel. It is surely a rarity to see a Macbeth where disco balls swirl as battleplans are drawn up and the haggis at a Scottish banquet is blessed with a hip-hop version of ‘double, double toil and trouble’. On departing from the auditorium, I was more convinced than ever that Shakespeare knows best. Directors, meddle with his work at your peril.
Jacobean Tragedy
By William Shakespeare
Director: Richard Twyman
Photo credits: Richard Lakos
Cast includes: Alex Austin; Lois Chimimba; Gabriel Akuwudike; Sophie Stone; Bella Aubin; David Colvin; Daniel Hawksford; Bianca Stephens; Ammar Haj Ahmad.
Until: Saturday 29th March 2025
Running Time: 2 hours and 3o minutes, including an interval
5th March 2025