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Theatre review: Macbeth, Royal Shakespeare Company

I attended the press night of the RSC’s 2018 production of Macbeth but paid for my own ticket and lodgings.

Continuing my long-term project to see all of Shakespeare’s canon on stage, and a 2018 ambition to see more regional theatre, I left London for Stratford-upon-Avon. The last time I was here, making my radio documentary, the Royal Shakespeare Theatre was still undergoing reconstruction. So this was my first visit inside. The floorboards of the stage from the 1932 theatre have been salvaged and used around the outside of the auditorium in the rebuilt structure, a lovely touch. However, as Shakespeare wrote, the play’s the thing – and thats why I was here.

The cons – I was in an aisle seat to the extreme right of the thrust stage, which was mostly fine, except there were text projections above the stage which I couldn’t see. There was also a kind of mezzanine second stage á la the Globe Theatre I couldn’t see almost any of, but performers appeared there sometimes.

A digital clock at the mezzanine level began counting down after Macbeth kills Duncan, giving a helpful indicator of how long is left until the end of the play. However, in this action-light production, it felt a little like an (albeit fairly lenient) prison sentence marking the minutes until we were to be granted freedom. Get rid of it.

The three witches are played by three small girls clutching stuffed bears. Their key “boil boil” scene is moved to much later in the play than usual. I am not a Shakespeare scholar; I cannot wail feverishly about “the text” being butchered. But I noticed this change, and also that all the witch scenes were much shorter than those I have read in the First Folio, presumably to ease the load on the child actors. This does them a disservice, as the RSC should know from its productions of Les Misérables and Matilda the Musical that children acting can easily match adults in talent and stamina.

So to the adults. The famous Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Co-opted to describe the couple who cheated to game Who Wants to be a Millionaire? into giving them ill-gotten gains back in 2001 (a genius connection perhaps, but I’m seeing Quiz, James Graham’s exploration of the saga, next month). They were hardly on stage together and lacked chemistry when they were. It’s early in the run, perhaps, but I was disappointed. Christopher Eccleston is an emotion-driven, passionate actor – what made him such a good Doctor, and this is his Royal Shakespeare Company debut. Niamh Cusack I cannot particularly recall seeing in anything before, although I know the name. I didn’t feel that she was tormented much. Again, chemistry.

I must give a special mention to Ed Bennett as Macduff. Besuited, he was the spit of John Krasinski’s Jim from the U.S. version of The Office. He is a very low-key performer, his grief at the murder of his family palpable but still movingly understated, until the bubble bursts in the final scene, and he does for Macbeth. I saw him stand in for David Tennant in the title role of the RSC’s London run of Hamlet in 2008, and loved him. The last decade, in which he has worked consistently for the Company, have only improved his mastery of the craft. It was thoroughly enjoyable to see him again.

Look, overall, I wouldn’t rush to see this production. It’s coming to the Barbican in October and it will be likely fairly well received. It seems it is better than the National’s current production lead by Rory Kinnear and Ann-Marie Duff, which apparently relies on gore and an odd staging to draw the audience. So it’s up to you.

Macbeth by William Shakespeare, director Polly Findlay, is at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, until September, and then at the Barbican Theatre, London, from October until January 2019. *** / *****

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Book review: On the Bright Side (Hendrik Groen)

**** / *****

After having adored the first “diary” by Hendrik Groen, I was excited to find out what the now 85-year-old had been up to. Although perhaps unsurprisingly a little bleaker in tone, the writing still feels searingly true to life. There is love and loss of all kinds in the second year Groen documents. There are of course more outings for the Old-But-Not-Dead Club, progressing to restaurant gatherings and even a trip abroad. For a time of life that can be extremely lonely for far too many people, Groen absolutely has it made, living as he does in the home with his friends, fighting the Director by re-forming a residents’ committee. There are new characters and dramas in the home. We learn a little more about Henk’s long life. Drawn out from memory almost casually is the death of his young daughter – not in a sensationalist way, since it is likely more than fifty years – but rationally, with acceptance. I am not sure exactly who Hendrik’s target audience is, but I recommend his diaries to all. He professes a desire to write his first novel “next year” – actually 2016 (this second book was published in his native Netherlands in January of that year). I understand via Google Translate on a Dutch publishing news site that the novel will indeed be published in 2018. I hope for an English translation soon after.

On the Bright Side: The New Secret Diary of Hendrik Groen is published on January 11th by Michael Joseph (Penguin UK)

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Book review: THE ESSEX SERPENT

THE ESSEX SERPENT by Sarah Perry

I had little idea of what to expect from this book, save for the first page I read before buying it. On completion, I feel I have lived at least the full year depicted in its pages between Essex and London. The writing is delicious and exquisite. Sarah Perry weaves so easily between the narratives of each character it is easy to forget you are not actually each person in turn.
The writing is often poetic but never denigrates to being flowery or extravagant. It simply and delicately paints a tempting picture of Victorian England, whilst including important issues of the time such as the housing crisis, poverty, a pre-NHS healthcare system and inequity. Sound familiar? There is love and lust, unrequited and not; there is friendship and hatred, the rich and the poor. It is a stunning tapestry of an era none of us have experienced, yet we still face many of the human problems today. It is the kind of polished writing that will make any author reading, aspiring or published, jealous at their comparative lack of skill.

Between the goings-on of Victorian society there was of course the matter of the Essex Serpent. Perry has created such a believable world in the fictional village of Aldwinter, bolstered perhaps by the real-life seventeenth century legend of such a beast. It permeates village life and becomes main character Cora’s – if any of them is truly the main character, it’s her – obsession. In the end everything is fairly neatly tied up, which may disappoint those who wish for further tragedy, but it felt fitting to me. Immediately after finishing the book I wanted to know more – to check whether Aldwinter was fictional or otherwise, to read the legend of the Essex Serpent – things I had stopped myself from checking before for fear of spoilers. In short, I highly recommend this book – the best I have read since Hanya Yanagihara’s A Little Life, a book similarly ebbing between its characters’ thoughts and experiences. For those of an aural disposition, THE ESSEX SERPENT was recently adapted for BBC Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime, and is available to listen for a few more days.