Macbeth

Synopsis: Video recording of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2011 production of Macbeth directed by Michael Boyd with Jonathan Slinger and Aislin McGuckin as the Macbeths.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Video
Technical information: Colour / Sound
Recording date: 2011
Duration: 170 (inc. interval)

General: `The concept is to set the play in a Reformation world symbolised, in Tom Piper’s set, by fractured stained-glass windows and desecrated religious icons. Scotland becomes a place of brutal pragmatism in which Ross is transformed from an anonymous thane into a relic of an isolated priesthood. The notion of Macbeth as a tyrannical enemy of spirituality is reinforced by a device that Boyd deployed in his Shakespeare histories: the dead are ever-present; by the end, the ghosts of Banquo, Duncan, Lady Macduff and her brood all return to rejoice in the hero’s downfall and to rebut his claim about the brevity and insignificance of life.

All this is fascinating. But it runs counter to Macbeth’s earlier awareness of divine sanctions. Boyd also dispenses with the Weird Sisters, putting their prophecies into the mouths of children’ [Michael Billington, The Guardian, 27 April 2011].

Name: Royal Shakespeare Company
Web: https://www.rsc.org.uk External site opens in new window
Address: Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Waterside
Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire
CV37 6BB

Jonathan Slinger	Macbeth
Aislin McGuckin	Lady Macbeth
Aidan Kelly	Macduff
Howard Charles	Malcolm
Steve Toussaint	Banquo
Caroline Martin	Lady Macduff
Christopher Wright	Doctor of Physic
Daniel Percival	Lennox
Daniel Rose	Angus
David Mcgranaghan	Edward the Confessor’s doctor
Des McAleer	King Duncan
Jamie Beamish	Seyton
Madeleine Appiah	Gentlewoman
Nikesh Patel	Donalbain
Scott Handy	Ross

British Universities Film & Video Council