N.T. LIVE - MACBETH

This write-up is, of course, happening well after the fact because I didn't have time to do anything about it at the time seeing as I was off and about doing "holiday things" and far, far away from dreary things like keyboards and so forth, and if you think that I'm going to try writing such things on the keys of a tiny portable telephone, then you know little of my ham-fisted technophobia...

Anyway...

We were hugely excited to discover that Sir Kenneth Branagh was going to return to the Shakespearean stage for the first time in over a decade in order to play "Macbeth" at the Manchester International Festival and, whilst it transpired that tickets were like gold dust and almost impossible to get hold of, having sold out in an incredible nine minutes way back in February, we were excited all over again to find out that it was going to be given the rare honour of being broadcast live to cinemas as part of the "N.T. Live" project which I may have mentioned a couple of times already in these pages.

Then, of course, we found out that there was a clash of dates, and the scheduled live broadcast would be happening on the very first evening of our planned holiday in Anglesey, and suddenly it looked as if we might have to miss out on this rare treat, which remains, for various reasons far too complicated to go into here, one of my favourite plays.

Still, with a little bit of research, we found out that it would be playing at a venue that we'd not previously heard of, the Ucheldre Arts Centre in Holyhead, and we were able to book tickets over the phone a few weeks in advance, and our evening of Shakespeare was saved, with the slightly unusual development that we were travelling 120 miles or more to watch a play being beamed out from the general vicinity of where we'd set off from that very morning.

Such is the value of location, location, location.

Nevertheless, we turned up at the appointed hour and found ourselves at what appears to be a quite brilliant project, in that the Ucheldre Centre is an old convent which is in the process of being converted into an arts centre and seems to be making a rather wonderful job of itself. It's a long time since I've found myself feeling quite so enthusiastic about, well, pretty much anything really, and if I lived in the area, you could almost bet your last penny that I'd be throwing myself into the venture with as much gusto as I could muster (never much these days, sadly...), at least until something happened to disappoint me anyway...

I was already in a good mood. After all, following the endurance test of the last half year, I was finally on holiday, and I'd just eaten at the "Oyster Catcher", a local restaurant which is, incidentally, another quite brilliant local project about which I might enthuse to you another day.

Happily, of course, and despite my misgivings and worries about my capabilities when it comes to things like advanced bookings, the tickets were actually there just as they were supposed to be. Of course, being me, we actually turned quite considerably before the appointed hour, which was just as well, because it meant that the staff were willing to reserve us our seats and, given our usual request for "middle, middle" we were given some of the very best seats in the place, right amongst all those members who had reserved their seats too, and, given that the original was being performed in a church in central Manchester, seeing it in a converted convent somehow seemed highly appropriate.

The (deconsecrated) church in question was St Peter's and it worked astonishingly well as a performance space with the audience on two sides of a central aisle ankle deep in sodden mud (made more so by the downpour under which the opening - almost cinematic - battle was staged) in which much of the action occurred. The exceptions to this were the altar area, beautifully lit (for the most part) with a sea of candles, and the balcony area at the rear of the church, the area beneath which had been covered with rough woodwork concealing doors which would cause mysterious appearances and disappearances as the plot required them.

Whilst all that mud may have disconcerted some and no doubt caused horrific daily problems for the wardrobe staff, having it here for the actors to slog through and battle upon seemed somehow very appropriate and probably helped considerably with getting into the mood of the piece, although I suspect it must have been exhausting, given the sweat that was pouring from the players (and the audience) on that stiflingly hot July evening.

Some key moments which have stuck fact in my memory were the peerless acting of Sir Kenneth Branagh (His "Tale told by an idiot" was astounding) and the playful raunchiness of both him and Alex Kingston until the inevitable fall. Of course, "Out, damn spot" is the key scene of Lady Macbeth which everyone in the audience is waiting for, and this performance did not disappoint, despite being a very fresh and modern take upon the madness that wickedness brings along with it.

So, whilst the heart of this production were those two astonishing performances from Kenneth Branagh as Macbeth and Alex Kingston as his Lady, I should also mention from amongst the impeccable supporting players, an outstanding portrayal of Macduff by Ray Fearon whose achingly painful enactment of the heartbreak and grief at the loss of his family was an absolute show-stopping moment towards the end of the performance.

I must also mention the artful staging of the "Is this a dagger I see before me?" scene which used a beam of light shining through the shape of a cross to devastating effect, and the use of the branch "shields" to represent Birnam Wood was a master-stroke, given that it would pass in front of the faces of the audience as they sat there, giving the sense that the trees were indeed passing in front of them on their way to Dunsinane.

Did I have any complaints?

Given that I thought that it was a theatrical triumph and something approaching a masterpiece, then not really, although there were obviously a few quibbles, possibly caused by altering the staging for the cameras that night.

For example, the sound quality for the Wyrd Sisters was a little bit suspect at first, in that I worried that if the show was all going to be that echoey, then I might not be able to make out a word. The play itself was, for obvious reasons, played through with no interval which did have the advantage of keeping the audience "inside" the play, but did lead to one or two of the audience in our cinema rather noticeably drifting off to the loo, distracting us from some of the key moments.

It also came as quite a surprise, given how familiar the text seems, at how long the main characters disappear off stage for once the evil deeds are done and they have ascended to the throne, but to criticise that would be to criticise Shakespeare himself, and I'm really not going to do that, although I suspect that losing that interval did rather make it all the more noticeable.

Finally, and this is a very minor quibble indeed, but that "closing shot" with swords raised directly at the "spider camera" way up in the rafters, did seem to be done especially "for the cameras" which was, of course, a very nice touch for those of us watching remotely, but might have looked rather strange to those actually in the venue itself.

Still, once again the "N.T. Live" experience did not disappoint, and I'm already counting the days until the next one...