Macbeth at The Cockpit

I was looking for a play to take my sister to on one of her visits up from Dorset and most of my more visited theatres either had things that I did not want to see on or I did want to see them so I had already booked for another day. The Cockpit is on my list of regularly visited places and when I saw that they were doing Macbeth the deal was done, who does not like the Scottish Play?!

It also set the foundation for the afternoon and evening which started with a walk around Bedford Park in Chiswick (we broke the journey in to London at Turnham Green station) and was followed by a curry at Lahori Church Street, just across the road from the theatre.

As usual I had done limited (at best) research beforehand so it was a surprise to find that the cast was all female, which was the second time that week following on from Pride & Prejudice* (*sort of).

The play otherwise was actually more conventional that I suspected. It ran for just over two hours so if it was abridged at all then it was minor.

Knowing the story of Macbeth fairly well helped as, due to being set during continuous wars, most of the actors wore battle fatigues (Lady Macbeth was the prominent exception) which made them a little hard to tell apart; Banquo was the one with red hair.

These were actors in training so some allowance could be made but apart from one who spoke a little too quickly at times for my taste I had no problems with their performances and was fairly impressed overall. And I remembered that there was a production of King Lear at National Theatre where some of the actors were very hard to understand.

The production of Macbeth thrived on the gruesome story and Shakespeare's poetic language, which were enough, but it lacked the depth of other productions, which is not surprising.

I enjoyed this Macbeth and though my sister was less enthused it was still a good night out.