English Touring Theatre boss Richard Twyman is a hugely experienced director of Shakespeare, so it’s beyond me how he came to create this atrocious Macbeth. My current theory is that he may have directed too much Shakespeare and emerged in some strange hinterland where every perverse decision in this production is made not for the audience but purely so he can feel alive again.
The modern-dress show opens not with Scottish lord Macbeth putting down the Thane of Cawdor’s rebellion against King Duncan and then encountering three witches, but with his wife Lady Macbeth (Lois Chimimba) on the phone to him, receiving his account of the same over the blower. We only hear her side of the conversation so without knowing the play already you would have only the barest idea of what was going on. And for what? There is an ambiguity of sorts throughout the production as to whether Macbeth really fought in a war and really encountered a trio of magical crones. But if he didn’t then it doesn’t seem to alter the story much, so who cares?
Alex Austin’s Essex-boy Macbeth’s journey from henpecked husband to preening cock of the walk is interesting enough, but Twyman does everything he can to make it confusing, from the ambiguity over the supernatural elements to the fiddly live video to a bizarre final showdown with Ammar Haj Ahmad’s Macduff that seems to be modelled on the Hugh Grant vs Colin Firth fight from the first Bridget Jones film.
And what to make of the feast scene? Traditionally the point where Macbeth’s grip on sanity starts to fray as he’s confronted by the spectre of his pal Banquo – who he’s just had murdered – here Austin’s Macbeth indulges in a panto-like section of crowd patter, invites two audience members up to join him at the table, and then doesn’t seem hugely bothered at any of the Banquo business when his guests have left. Nothing wrong with treating Macbeth like a black comedy, but Twyman’s production is all over the shop tonally.
Many – even most – of the ideas would be interesting if followed through coherently, but none of them are. Twyman just tosses stuff out madly in a production that’s the revenge tragedy equivalent of the Alan Partridge Monkey Tennis scene.