The wonderful wooden-O auditorium at Shakespeare North, which won the award for best new theatre building in 2023, is based on the remains of a theatre found in the basement of 10 Downing Street where Shakespeare’s men used to play in the evening by candlelight. I’ve often wondered how they did that, and now I know thanks to Ben Crystal’s candlelit production of Macbeth.

The thing about Shakespeare is that it always takes me about ten minutes to adjust to the language, to ‘get my ear in’. With candlelight you also have to ‘get your eye in’, but, once you have it here in Prescot, the shifting ten candelabra and the single candles held close to faces create a chiaroscuro that admirably suits this dark, violent tragedy.

I say violent, but Crystal’s production takes the Greek way and murder happens offstage, until we come to Macbeth himself, which I will not spoil. The feelings are nevertheless violent, and the terror real.

On press night the show was a little cloudy at the start. Director Crystal, who also plays Macbeth, gave him a light tone, which didn’t allow for the sudden thought by which he might become King to be sufficiently terrifying. But Lady M (an excellent Megs Kumari) thinks he’s a wuss and maybe he is. He makes up for it later, mixing madness, tyranny and slaughter with relish, until…well, you know the rest.

Lady M is hard, and hard to play. She has to hit the ground running as a full-on psychopath, triggered by Macbeth’s letter about wanting to kill the King. Initially, I found it difficult to ‘read’ Kumari’s Lady M (maybe I was getting my eye in) but she soon got into her stride. By by the time we were at “out damned spot, out I say!”, she was superb.

Banquo, played by Devon Anderson, is exactly the bloke you want beside you in a fight and lovely with it, while Janelle Thompson’s MacDuff is loyal, constantly wary and finally deeply vengeful. Malcolm is played by Calum Sim as a nice boy who might be a touch out of his depth but astute enough to run away, and Jen Hardy is terrific as a nervous, suspicious and finally defiant Lady MacDuff. They all speak the verse as though it were utterly normal, and make it so for us.

Macsen McKay seems to be everywhere, doubling like mad, and delivering news, good and bad, with that look that says ‘don’t kill me’, and Kate Benfield has a great time being an assassin and the porter. This is an ensemble production so whoever is available plays the witches and other parts, and our attention is underscored by atmospheric improvised music on cello and percussion played by Semay Wu, and the production is elegantly and economically designed by Mark Bailey.

I said that the play was ‘a little cloudy’ at the start, but by half-time it had turned into a fine, clear production, which will be very helpful to the teachers of the 40-odd schools coming to see it, although they may be a little confused by the queen apparently turning up as third murderer.

I have given the show three stars. With a bit of time it should hit four with little difficulty. And, if you haven’t yet been to Shakespeare North, this may be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see Shakespeare as he may have seen it. You have until October 3.

By Chris Wallis, Theatre Editor

Main image: credit Patch Dolan

 

Macbeth is at Shakespeare North Playhouse until October 3, 2026. For more information, click here.