Macbeth ( NT 2018)

I agree and do not get why the National allows people to return tickets, no other theatre does that. You see the production announced, you like the sound of it or the artistes in it, so you book, it’s a crapshoot, the reviews come out, well that is the risk you take.

So the positives: they spoke the lines nicely, that is the lines not drastically cut; Rory and Ann Marie will make a nice pairing someday in another play, probably yet to be written; it cracked on at the beginning; the revolve didn’t break down. I had a good seat. I saved most of the jelly babies.

A few negatives: what with the different accents? Was this the remnants of a Celtic fringe in a post apocalyptic wrecked state, now beset with gangs? Why do the dead people keep popping up thus weakening when they are supposed to, I mean Banquo. Duncan is never meant to be a ghost. Where was Donalbain? He is there for a reason and would make a nice point about the U.K. if he were there. I didn’t mind Fleance being a girl. I know we are supposed to be very aware of equality in casting but funnily, this is a play where Lady M is isolated as a woman and where she denies her womanliness.

Why no guns? The English army appears, comically in its desert pale uniform at the end and narry a gun in sight. In fact we know, don’t we that when the end comes, they will hang on to the guns. The machete type knives were meant to look like ISIS beheading knives were they? The fight at the end was pathetic. I mean, come on, it was school play standard and a bit less. Did they not do enough practice on it? The fight at the end is supposed to be the BIG thing. The audience on the left probably couldn’t see most of it anyway as it was at the side of the ramp. The ramp, the poles, the frilly bits, the torn bin bags, the brown wrapping tape were distractions because the whole shebang didn’t make sense. Where were we? And why? Had Macbeth thought of the murder before or not? They said the words but somehow they didn’t have power. The Witches did not horrify me half as much , if at all, as the children as witches in the Slinger RSC. They believed in witches, we don’t. So you have to make them something we are scared of. Evil children are something we are scared of. And sticking em up poles doesn’t help.

The shelf was full of school parties and it was lovely to see and hear them chitter chatter in the foyers afterwards but I do hope the schools ask the exam boards to take into account the changes to the text and the usual stage directions. They will get a lot of Lady M cutting her throat and dying in M's arms and the guy at the beginning reporting on the battle being Macduff and as said before, a female Fleance ( who could hitch up with Malcolm at the end and make the prophecy true.. cos you would have to do someat like that since the line is supposed to be Kings from Banquo, just a suggestion, Rufus) and a wonderful female Ross who made sense of her part quite well.

Im looking forward to the RSC show later in the year. 😳

An excellent review

Michael Fassbender film

I didn’t realise other theatres allow you to do this, mainly Art funded theatres.

Still don’t understand why the subsidised sector allows you to exchange your tickets. I suspect it started as a good gesture to allow people who genuinely cannot make the performance not to be out of pocket, not to be abused - to be chopped in because the reviews are bad.

The theatres should stop this service.