Macbeth ( NT 2018)

^ But why stage it in Edinburgh? Better to ask Rufus if he’ll work it into his schedule at the National. Put it on in the Olivier and he’ll get a sure-fire hit! It’ll be his first... A win-win situation for all concerned.

I’d certainly buy a ticket!

I also saw it yesterday and agree with what everyone has said. This production was very promising but alas it failed. I've never seen Macbeth onstage before but have seen a few film versions , and still somehow got confused. For me the set did seem a bit like ' how do we uselessly fill the stage?' 'with big poles that are not really used in the show!'. I also wanted the witches to be a bit more scary and just found the running around to be very generic and a lazy way to convey madness. Kinnear and Duff were both good but not overly great in my opinion, I wanted a but more from their performances. The rest of the cast were also good but nothing extraordinary. Also I found it odd is that the first and second half had stylistically different tones as in the first half they use deodorant the bridge and big bits of scenery but in the second only a few bits of furniture was used and they used the big plastic curtain to cover half the stage.
I liked the use of sound and the trumpets, the beheddings were cleverly done, and I did like the set design if it was a bit odd. I did enjoy the show and it was a alright production but I just wanted more and it did not deliver, if you want to see some good Shakespeare in London at the moment see Julius Caesar at the bridge, I was thinking about how much I enjoyed it while watching this which tells you something. 

For a while now I have been giving Norris the benefit of the doubt being artistic director and I think he is doing a good job programming everything but his actual directing is a bit meh. I have seen most of his shows there since he has become AD Andy I don't think I will rush to see anymore.

It means my bloody auto correct is being stupid and can't spell. It is meant to say 'used' not 'use deodorant'. Sorry for my spelling mistakes, I can do many things but sadly spelling is not one of them.

overheard front of house saying to someone who couldnt get tickets.....its mainly schools,Macbeth is on syllabus.We do seem to cater more for schools at RSC these days.

Perhaps explains the popularity.

A lot of returns up for the NT Macbeth, including £15 front ones - I've just returned a £45 for a better one at £15 (I had already booked trains)

I long for schools or rather the exam boards to set Troilus and Cressida but they won’t because they only did Macbeth at school so they don’t know any other plays. We are stuck into Macbeth for ever when as we know each play comes into its own in an era and this is surely an era for torn allegiances and cynicism. All plays for all time, yes but nuanced. ( same with poetry syllabus, don’t get me started..)

They always did, indeed it would seem idd if they ignored the syllabus.

It was, especially when Ian Mckellen stomped up the aisles, exiting through the audience. I saw it when it transferred to the Young Vic. I was quite young then and I was petrified! And Judi Dench’s stifled scream during the mad scene will never be forgotten... Chilling! 

Saw this Saturday night. This is a perfectly functional Macbeth, with narrative drive, but without a defining concept to make it memorable. Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff don't have sufficient business between each other to give depth to their scenes together, but apart, each give affecting performances, as does former RSC Macbeth, Patrick O'Kane, as a deeply touching Macduff.

Some spoilers follow. . .

Norris is good at giving a play drive, but less so depth. His habit of getting very loud (rave scenes, fight scenes, etc) works extremely well in providing stark contrast for sudden silences, containing dramatic monologues, and moments of thoughtful aftermath. I suspect the enormous spinning ramp, that characters continually run up and down, also reflects Norris' sense that narrative drive, reflected by continuous movement up and down the ramp, is essential to entertaining audiences. Entertaining it is I think, but unedifying.

Unlike the Kinnear-Hytner National collaborations (Big Brother Hamlet, an Othello that demonstrated how Uniforms disguise treachery), there is little beneath the surface. Well, there is the concept that what goes around comes around, treated almost as an afterthought. This is hardly the depth of Ninagawa's elegiac overwhelming Macbeth, in which falling cherry blossoms suggested that everything in everyone's life is but a dream.

I think Norris is much influenced by popular movies, which also often are more sound and fury (Kinnear nails this speech) than soul. For instance, his witches seem like one is out of Ringu (the juddering witch), one is like Pinhead from Hellraiser (stiff and utterly still, unveiled by dissipating mist), and the third has drifted in from a David Lynch dream scene, in slow motion, and using unnatural vocal intonations, that Lynch originally created by recording actors talking backwards and then rewinding the recording. The witches are suitably freaky and frightening, but they are not original creations. Then again, what is?

In answer to a question (above), the rave scene here is indeed reminiscent of "Everyman," but noone snorts a whole tableful of coke here, so it's not a repeat. What is a repeat is the apparent use of bin bags, which here form huge black binbag stalactites from the rafters, that engulf the production. The stalactites reminded me of 80's dystopian BBC tv sci fi.

With Rory Kinnear (in strutting mode), Anne-Marie Duff (wired and tearful), and Patrick O'Kane (heartfelt and tender for his pretty chickens), what you get is an ever dynamic, sometimes disconnected, piece of entertaining sound and fury in the theatre, soon forgotten.

3 and a half stars.

Thanks Steve. I’m thinking a whole bag of jelly babies to get me through this one.

Whoa, seriously?  I've never heard of that in the UK, either in any of the schools I went to or taught in. I know schools are underfunded, but that's awful!

I weep.