David Tennant as Macbeth - Donmar Warehouse / Harold Pinter

Yeah, I was refreshing from 10 and they all went pretty quickly but there were some available - mostly the seats up against the walls though

I tried to buy tickets the minute they came out and I couldn't get any. What do we think the odds are of actually being able to get the Donmar Daily or standing tix? I need to see Tennant as Macbeth- not sure about the headphones though

Just got back after seeing the first preview. The first thing you spot is the headphones on all the seats. When you put them on they tell you which ear they should be on. I’m not sure if they added anything to the performance but you could hear everything very clearly. Certain parts of dialog only came through the headphones, for example, I heard the witches but never saw them. The stage itself is just a raised square in the middle with a large ‘window’ in the background through which you can see other members of the cast at certain times.
Overall I enjoyed it but couldn’t say it was the best Macbeth I’ve seen. I enjoyed David Tennant’s performance but preferred Cush Jumbo as Lady M. I’m not very good at writing these things but I’m glad I saw it

Got a Donmar Daily. Same seat I got for Clyde's - £25 in the circle! Refreshing every 3 seconds from 9:57 and it appeared very close to 10am.

Donmar daily, for the following weeks performance on the same day, is always at 10am.

Thanks for posting. I do get a good idea of the show from this. I sent my tix back because I didn’t want to have to use the earphones. I couldn’t understand the concept. Why wear if you are supposed to be listening to what is in front of you? Still puzzled. 

This sounds like it’s drawing on the tech used for the Blindness sound installation the Donmar did after lockdown. That was an interesting experience at a time when we were starved of ‘real’ theatre, but there was no sense of being part of an audience.

I’m quite intrigued by how this will work in Macbeth, and whether the experience of live theatre will be diluted in any way. I don’t mind seeing Shakespeare done in different ways (although I wish we could have more concept-free, straightforward Shakespeares too). What I hope it won’t do is start a fashion for doing theatre in this way.

I saw five or six daily tickets for 19/12/2023 today at 10 am, but these tickets disappeared so quickly!

Still thinking about this. The headphones both added and detracted. Added in the sense that the actors could really whisper and could use literally all of the tones in their arsenal, which were not inconsiderable (DT’s beautiful diction was amazing, his pronunciation of “rhubarb” was worth the price of admission on its own, and Cush Jumbo was stellar). Detracted in the sense that the actors were there, and acting, and we could see them, but the immediacy of live theatre was taken away a bit, for me. I tried taking my headphones off at one point (the beginning of “act 2” has some potential audience participation for those in the front row, be warned (I think you can decline by not making eye contact)) but there was too much going on to really do that for very long. The headphones worked beautifully with the witches, though. Overall I enjoyed it very much, there was some really superb acting.

Thanks for posting this. Sounds like a nightmare for me. I’m not a headphones kinda gal at the best of times.