Macbeth with Patrick Stewart - BBC4

[GettinFestive]

I saw this on stage and it was brilliant - is anybody watching? I'm watching it tomorrow, can't wait.

I've been watching it. Depressing that hardly anyone else will be watching it though. X Factor is on the other side!

I didn't know it was on! Will I get I on iplayer do you think?

will watch it on iplayer, love patrick stewart.

Wonderful, and I normally don't enjoy Shakespeare.

I was watching it but it drove me mad. Love PS but he's a bit aged for Macbeth. And the odd setting was pissing me off, bloddy heck it's in Scotland fgs, all that Thane of Fife and all...!

On Twitter I read 'Loving Patrick Stewart in BBC4's Macbeth. But I keep expecting him to say "Then all her clothes fall off. And I can see ... everything."'

I saw this at Chichester. It was fantastic. Got cheap seats right at the front beside the exit and kept having to move my legs to one side as the actors swept off stage. It was intense and gripping

We must have been sitting near you Donkeyderby we had £10 seats by the exit too.

Did you see Kate Fleetwood suck her thumb.

I will have to watch that episode of Extras again

I thought even though it's set in Scotland this communicated a violent fascist regime.

It was grim, in a good way. I've always felt sorry for Macbeth before, but in this production I really quite hated him.

It was in the Minerva wasnt it? Not the main festival theatre

It's the best representation of the witches imo, would have been believed in as real in Shakespeare's day

Am I the only person who thought there was so much that was wrong with this production?

Macbeth. Probably late twenties. Mid thirties tops. Patrick Stewart - 60.
WRONG!
I'm going to have a rant because I'm so bored with seeing Shakespeare played by actors who 'do' Shakespeare.
Macduff? What was going on in the casting there? All I could see was an 'actor'.
Am also fed up with military settings, camouflage, boots, dry ice. Yes I know there are battles in it but there does seem to be a trend to tech up the military look when other costumes, settings are still 'suggested'.

Not good. Not clever. Boring.

Rant over.

Take your point, but this communicated the violence and intensity, my friend's teenage ds said he felt scared when we saw it on stage. The stalinist setting imo is less remote than events long ago.

Although having said that - I don't think the porter scene on stage was right - I've not seen this tv production all the way through but the porter scene is supposed to be hilariously funny, a bit of light relief from the intensity, but he was played in a sinister way.

I kind of enjoyed it, but I did think it was a bit of a hotch-potch. The castle-as-disused-hospital setting was a bit weird, and so was the half-hearted Russian theme (though the best thing you can say about Patrick Stewart is that he makes a brilliant slav, especially in Socialist Realist propaganda posters.

Agree he was too old; but his being so wicked, rather than weak, was interesting.

In general, the desire to slip in a bit of visual business to give content and narrative other than that which the words entail or suggest is tiresome. I suppose directors feel driven to innovate meanings in Shakespeare, so that they can make their mark. I just want to hear the wonderful words, which I felt were often rushed throu and backgrounded by the quest for production novelty.

The witches were fabulous.

mouseyhair no I posted lower down that Stewart is way too old. How's his bird going to bring forth any children at all (unless she's a lot younger than him...)

Yy also agree re wonderful words which we barely heard in the rush to another setting.