Macbeth at Olympic Theatre

There were two major versions of Macbeth on in London in 2024 and I chose to see the Ralph Fiennes and  Indira Varma version rather than the David Tennant and Crush Jumbo one. There were various reasons for this including the unusual staging of the first at Dock X and having a David Tennant version of Macbeth freely available on BBC Sounds (something BBC does not make enough of). That decision proved to be good and I absolutely loved Macbeth at Dock X.

Due to its obvious popularity the Tennant/Jumbo version returned to the stage and while I was more tempted this time, it being several months since I had seen a Macbeth, the pricing put me off what was not an urgent see.

Then it was broadcast in cinemas and paying just £20 was a lot more tempting than paying, say, £160 for a much worse view in a much less comfortable seat.

I have not yet found a regular pre-theatre place to eat in Barnes and on this evening I ended up having a plant-based burger in Coach and Horses which did the job.

From the start this was a radical version of Macbeth, staged in the round with a plain white stage and no props. The perimeter was black and in there lurked some of the cast, dressed in black, who provided off-stage voices. This included the three witches who we never saw.

The audience were wearing headphones and I never worked out why.

The final technology was the actors' microphones, an unexpected technology given the small size of the theatre. They were small and discrete and while they would have been hardly noticeable to the theatre audience they were very obvious to us watching in cinemas due to the many close-ups.

This was also a slightly abridged version running for about 90 minutes whereas the radio plays are almost 120 minutes. There is a lot of verbiage in Shakespeare so it is easy to cut stuff without impacting the story but while the text is unnecessary it is poetic and I find it hard to believe that it ever makes sense to ever cut any of it. And, rarely, the cuts here were large enough for even me to notice when some of it had gone.

All that said this was still a might fine production of a mighty fine play. The simplicity of the staging and the good lead performers, as at Dock X, allowed the play the space it needed to shine.