Shakespeare Globe

Macbeth

by William Shakespeare

PRODUCTION NOW CLOSED

**** 'The strongest opener to a Globe season I have seen' The Times

**** 'An exciting reassertion of a Macbeth that's been largely forgotten. And it exploits to the full the physical dimension of the space' The Independent

**** 'The groundlings have by far the most fun in this production... Elliot Cowan is a fine Macbeth' Metro

**** 'Playful, original and powerful... Elliot Cowan is a strapping, handsome Macbeth: he brings vigour and charisma to the part... The brooding production launches the new season strongly' The Financial Times

'The staging, brilliant designed by Katrina Lindsay, is spectacular... The three witches are superbly sinister... Frank Scantori makes a spectacularly lewd and grotesque Porter' Daily Telegraph

'Laura Rogers makes a convincing wife. She moves convincingly from smooth operator to nervous wreck and is harrowing in her final scene... Great supporting work all round but especially from Christian Bradley as an undeceived Banquo and Keith Dunphy as a superlative, crusading Macduff' Observer

'Blood-soaked spectacle of primitive psychology, noise and raw acting' The Sunday Times

'Bailey's production cackles with wicked glee and it's stuffed with deliciously nasty surprises... It is at once oozing with dark, pornographic Jacobean superstition and as crowd-pleasing and horribly titillating as an afternoon at the London Dungeon' Time Out

When three witches tell the general Macbeth that he is destined to occupy the throne of Scotland, he and his wife choose to become the instruments of their fate and to kill the first man to stand in their path, the virtuous King Duncan. But to maintain his position, Macbeth must keep on killing – at first Banquo, his old comrade-in-arms; and later, as the atmosphere of guilt and paranoia thickens, anyone who seems a threat to the tyrant and his fear.

From its first moments to the last fulfilment of the witches' prophecy, Shakespeare's gripping account of the psychological experience of murder enthralls the imagination. In scenes of nightmarish vividness and language of haunting power, Macbeth represents the profoundest engagement with the forces of evil in all drama.

Lucy Bailey’s previous work at Shakespeare’s Globe includes thrilling productions of Titus Andronicus and Timon of Athens.

Elliot Cowan recently played Stanley Kowalski in A Streetcar Named Desire (Donmar), and his screen credits include Mr Darcy in Lost in Austen (ITV).

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