It’s 2011. Ben and Jibreel are typical teenaged boys – obsessed with video games, worried about girls, school, friends and family. They regularly meet on X-box Live for lengthy gaming sessions and banter, though they’ve never met. Ben lives in Stockport and Jibreel in Daraa, Syria. As Ben learns about the increasing unrest, Jibreel begins to distance himself. Ben eventually takes action to fight the tyrannical regime with the help of a dubious sidekick, but as he carries out his mission, his mental health collapses. Though Correspondence touches on hot-button issues, it has a convoluted, disconnected plot that doesn’t give enough attention to any of the issues it confronts.

This is a play in three completely different parts, none of which flow into the other or have much of a thread. The first third of the play centres on Ben (Joe Attewell) and Jibreel’s (Ali Ariaie) friendship, with the deterioration of Syria discussed in between laddish chatting. Ben charmingly interviews about Syrian life for the school newspaper, and Jibreel wants Ben to help him with his English as they blast their way through Call of Duty. There are plenty of lovely, intimate moments in Lucinda Burnett’s script. We also meet Ben’s divorced parents Joanna Croll and Mark Extance) and pint-sized bully Harriet (Jill Mcausland) at his school, but Ben and Jibreel’s scenes are the focus, and the best ones in the play. It’s a shame the play didn’t follow this path, as it could have a powerful, humanising view of Syrian refugees who are victim of the war.

Unfortunately, Ben’s decision to go to Syria and find Jibreel after he stops showing up for the X-box sessions shifts the action solely to Ben’s fracturing brain. His short trip is sparsely detailed and neglects Jibreel as a character. The same happens in the final third of the play, where hardly anything happens after we suddenly find him back in Stockport. These could be completely separate plays with mental health as the focus, but instead, there’s no depth – just passing comments that feel forced.

The performances are good, though occasionally self-conscious during the sections of Burnett’s dialogue that feel artificial to the moment. Mcausland’s performance is excellent, aided by a clear and touching character journey. Croll and Extance have some great moments of prickly conflict, and Ariaie and Attewell have some gorgeous tender moments over their gaming headsets.

Bethany Well’s dominant white circle of a set looks great with Christopher Nairne’s lighting; it creates some good images but doesn’t contribute much to the story or its excessive number of messages. Blythe Stewart directs, but struggles with the muddle that is the script. 

It’s a most frustrating experience when a play clearly has loads of potential but doesn’t really come close to achieving it. Correspondence, despite good performances and some excellent stand-alone moments, struggles to hold itself together. Lucinda Burnett’s script tries to force too many unrelated issues into 90 minutes, where one will do to create a much more interesting story.

Correspondence runs through 2nd April at Old Red Lion Theatre. 

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Cross-gender and gender blind casting goes a long way to fight the pervasive gender inequality in theatre. With male characters dominating Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre, these casting approaches, along with all-female productions, are the only way to work towards achieving equality in classical productions. At the Rose Playhouse, director Peter Darney of Em-Lou Productions takes the absurd, vengeful world of Middleton’s The Revenger’s Tragedy and completely swaps genders.

By endowing women with the stereotypically masculine, obsessive fighting and fucking that occurs in the play, the heightened ridiculousness draws attention to our ingrained perceptions of how men and women should and shouldn’t behave. Simultaneously freeing and unsettling, Darney’s production draws attention to imbedded patriarchal expectations of women as caregivers by turning them into ruthless, vengeful machines in a strikingly designed, competently performed production.

With a black and red colour scheme inspired by the dark pool preserving the Rose’s archeological remains and the red rope lights that outline its foundations, Darney and designer Nicki Martin Harper have imagined the play’s action taking place in a goth/steampunk/BDSM world. Surprisingly, it works incredibly well. The sexually suggestive, alternative look suits these characters driven by sex and violence to seek revenge. There’s a ruthless, devil-may-care mood, and the striking costumes draw attention away from the inability to have much set on the small stage.

Darney, of Five Guys Chillin’ fame, doesn’t shy away from sex and violence. From the start, we see the crime that sparks the cycle of revenge: Junior (Camilla Watson) rapes Lord Antonio (Kit Heanue) with the hell of her stiletto. Staged at the back of the site, the audience is spared any gory detail (though there is plenty to come), but it’s a hell of an image to start with. The murders are similarly graphic, with an electric drill, daggers and poison all wielded with ferocious venom and copious amounts of fake blood. Most of the fights are rather clumsy and simple; a fight choreographer could increase the violence tenfold. There is also plenty of seduction and revealing costume, though some of the 15-strong cast disappointingly resort to playing sexy rather than finding any of their characters’ depth. The script also loses momentum after the first batch of killings and takes some time to pick up again.

Rebecca Tanwen and Allie Croker as evil sisters Ambitioso and Supervacuo give sparky, spunky (albeit posh) performances as they pursue their agenda. More earthy and vindictive are Vindice (a spectacular Annie Nelson) and Hippolita (Brittany Atkins), who have an urban, estate kid urgency and resourcefulness as they go after the Duchess (Deborah Kearne) for previously poisoning Vindice’s father. The rest of the ensemble are generally energetic and confident, handle the text well, and are unafraid to directly address the audience and include them in their bawdiness. Darney and his cast punch the sexual innuendos in the script, adding comedy that, in turn, makes the violence all the more shocking.

With a cast of beautiful people, The Revenger’s Tragedy is visually rich, with an edited storyline that is easy to follow, even to those not particularly familiar with the play. Though some of the performances need developing and the supposedly 90-minute show is actually two hours, it’s an entertaining production that is most valuable for its comment on society’s expectations of women. Seeing an unrestrained depiction of them as selfish seducers and killers is shocking not because of the acts they commit, but that it is women committing them – a sign of ingrained expectations of behaviour that are the root of gender inequality.

Running through 27th March at Rose Playhouse, Bankside.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Mary Jane, Joe and their two teenagers, Maz and Kev, are happy. Even Mary Jane’s mum, confined to a wheelchair and trapped in her own mind by age and medication, is happily restful. Their lives aren’t perfect, but they love each other and relish their middle class, heteronormative, suburban existence. Joe’s a teacher, Mary Jane’s a tax inspector, Maz wants to study fashion and Kev is obsessed with video games. They are undeniably normal, until Mary Jane has a stroke whilst doing the ironing and the four of them are changed forever. Jo Clifford’s Every One, even with its nuclear family, takes a gently radical view of death through a metatheatrical structure that loosely parallels Everyman and thoroughly breaks hearts with the love this family has for each other.

Lengthy monologues by the five family members smash the fourth wall, creating an intimate space inclusive of the audience as well as each other. They immediately endear themselves to us with their personal anecdotes that set up the tiny, catastrophic fall that is the death of a daughter, wife and mother. Michael Fenton Stevens as Joe, Mary Jane’s husband, devastates us on witnessing the death of his wife and seemingly never ending grief. Mary Jane (Angela Clerkin) is so full of life both before and after her death. Her diminutive frame, alternatively longing for her family, whirling with joy and relishing a post-coital Saturday morning is so alive, making the impact of her passing all the more keenly felt. Nigel Barrett makes a wonderfully surprising appearance as Death, but he is a dapper, crush velvet-clad friendly chap who escorts Mary Jane to the underworld. Maybe death isn’t so bad, after all.

The set consists of a serious of wooden platforms at various heights that, with a smattering of potted plants, has a warm sense of life. Katherine Williams’ lighting design has a similar warmth, even in the underworld. The actors are constantly present on stage, further highlighting the bonds of this wonderful little family. Clifford wisely focus on the characters’ relationships rather than on Mary Jane’s death; she is very much alive to them one year after her passing.

Though Every One plucks at the heartstrings and leaves you wanting a cuddle from your nearest and dearest, it is just a shade too long. Two hours with no interval could easily be 90 minutes and still retain it’s impact. This is a script issue rather than one of pace. The pace and energy of the play is spot-on, to increase either would cause the production to lose its impact.

Every One takes a celebratory view of life and death, but doesn’t glamourise it. A recitation of causes of death around the world reiterates its normalcy but draws attention to the horror that is constantly occurring abuse, famine and terrorism. Death is all around us, and this fantastically performed family’s experience of it is both heartwarming and heartbreaking. This gentle interpretation of Jo Clifford’s 2010 play reminds us of our mortality but also calls on us to make the most of the time we have with those we love. Go see it, then tell your friends and family that you love them.

I’ve never seen any theatre from New Zealand before All Your Wants + Needs Fulfilled Forever. Compared to British theatre, how similar or different would a show be from a company that has never worked in the UK? What themes and styles are classed as “innovative and imaginative” down there? Would the work have the same aesthetic that British fringe theatre has developed, and would it be to a British audience’s taste?

All Your Wants + Needs Fulfilled Forever bears some resemblance to British progressive theatre, but in other areas, there is clear difference. With a plot showing influence by “The Trueman Show”, “Inception” and other films that present a reality controlled by unseen, powerful individuals, it has a plot that I could easily imagine from a number of UK fringe theatre companies, but the major difference is that the production is slick. Like, REALLY slick. It doesn’t look or feel like fringe theatre. Eli Kent’s dystopian script is layered, has a perfectly formed dramatic arc and a balanced use of humour and pathos. Other than a slight excess of vague plot points, this is a provocative, progressive play that British fringe theatre could learn a lot from.

Simon (played by playwright Kent) recently lost his dad and is struggling to cope. A disembodied voice/robot/computer that we never see who has a trio of technicians at its disposal intervene to create a better narrative for Simon. The audience’s view is from backstage – rather than seeing Simon’s engineered world from his perspective, we see a blinding white box framed by microphones, computers, sound desks and random props that Joel Baxendale, Victoria Abbott and Hamish Parkinson (playing themselves) use to construct reality. It’s a unique perspective, and one that takes some time to adjust to. A toy gorilla is Simon’s stoner best mate, his mum is a pair of pink marigolds, and his girlfriend Alice is a mannequin that’s seen better days. All’s ticking along just fine, even with some glitches, until Simon’s free will trumps the science that attempted to control his life.

Live sound mixing is used more effectively in this play than in any others where I’ve seen it used. It fits this metatheatrical world to a T rather than trying to be invisible or be something it’s not. Marcus Mcshane’s lighting takes advantage of the smart lighting rig, adding mood and colour to the white cube that Simon functions in. The mid-1990’s costumes by Lizzie Morris juxtapose the contemporary tech and highlight the awkwardness of the characters and their inability to fit in. It all blends seamlessly with the storyline and no design elements dwarfs the others.

Clearly one of the factors of this show’s success is its funding. This isn’t a large scale show at all, but the tech and specially made set with its windows and flaps in just the right positions for the action won’t have come cheap. R&D wouldn’t have been short, either. Though fringe in spirit, All Your Wants + Needs Fulfilled Forever is definitely not fringe in appearance. If small scale theatre in the UK had more funding, this level of work would be much more common on the fringe: sophisticated, progressive scripts with a well-rehearsed cast and enough design to create a fully formed world rather than the predictable minimalism that restricts ideas to the familiar domesticity of a few tables and chairs.

This ninth production from The Playground Collective has been running off and on since 2014 so the cast have great chemistry and there are no apparent mistakes with any of the tech. No doubt the long run also plays a part in the polish of the show, but this is something that is also not possible without financial backing. Though thematically just as progressive as some of the small-scale British touring companies (Theatre Ad Infinitum’s Light is a strong parallel), it’s an excellent show that proves the potential of fringe theatre if it had access to decent levels of funding.

1973, a village in rural England. Fifteen-year-old Dinah is placed in the care of 49-year-old, first time foster mother, Lotte (not ‘Lottie,’ that’s an English name!). As the two navigate the fallout that results from Dinah’s troubled past, Lotte’s life as a war refugee in England parallels Dinah’s experiences of the care system. With more similarities between the two than expected, Transports is a fantastically performed, personal view of the trauma of displaced with excellent design elements.

Juliet Welch (Lotte) and Hannah Stephens (Dinah) are also Lotte’s carer Mrs Weston and Young Lotte respectively, about 35 years ago. Both women showcase great range and emotional truth through scenes of tenderness sharply contrasting their clashes. Writer Jon Welch’s gentle unfolding and blossoming of these women in each other’s lives is more moving than most love stories, and beautifully developed. Lotte is feistier than expected, and Dinah has a fragile heart that eventually opens to Lotte despite her hard exterior. A bittersweet end doesn’t sugarcoat the harsh realities of life as a displaced person, but neither is it too bleak of a forecast – a great choice by Welch.

Welch also directs this two-hander. His careful partitioning of the space with Alan and Jude Munden’s design creates intimacy and a sense of homeliness. Clean, stylised transitions clearly indicate changes in character and time, but these are longer than need be and not consistently accompanied by occasionally projected dates. A video makes up a brief epilogue about Leisl Munden, a poet who was on one of the last Kindertransport trains to England and on whose life Transports is based. Though powerful to see that the story has some truth in it, it also has enough power to stand independently of this bookend.

Two railroad tracks dominate the set, serving as a reminder that none of these women are able to be static and take root in any one place. Projections are laid over the full-scale tracks, hinting at atmosphere rather than displaying it outright. At times this is frustrating, at others, the shadows are more evocative than a clear image. Little details show care and consideration of the characters, like Lotte’s cat figurines and chest of memories from the war. There’s a sweetness in the design, as well as strength and movement. The overarching picture is incredibly dynamic as a result.

Transports occasionally feels like it could be a play for young people, what with the central experiences revolving around teenagers. The message of acceptance and and understanding is a simple one, but the script’s structure adds depth and universality. The story is a lovely one and occasionally sentimental, but by not shying away from frank discussion it finds a good balance – a complete and well-rounded play with a powerful story.

Shakespeare’s The Tempest is a love story, a swan song and a spectacle of supernatural life. It lends itself well to adaptation what with its complex, intertwining themes. In Mirando: The Gay Tempest, Martin Lewin turns the play into a solo performance told through a gay lens. Completely nude with a liberal coating of silver body spray, Lewin transforms Prospero’s daughter into a son and camps up some of the supporting roles. Though competently performed, there is too little focus on Mirando and Ferdinand’s blossoming love and in a solo performance, the relationships Lewin wants to focus on  are difficult to convey. It is certainly an interesting experiment, but one that does not completely follow through on its intentions.

Lewin is in the space and chatting with the audience as they enter; this immediately diminishes any awkwardness created by finding a naked man. Lewin’s use of text also draws attention away from his nudity and onto the story he tells us. With a triangle of colour-changing rope lights on the floor and a few wooden chairs, the audience focus is completely on him and his tale. Other than the play being set in on a wild island populated by all sorts of creatures, the justification behind Lewin’s nakedness isn’t clear. It didn’t create an issue, but neither did it add much to the production.

The edit Lewin created uses stage directions to add context and clarity; though initially surprising, they prove helpful.  His characters are often very similar, with little vocal variation. Some have distinct physical traits: Ariel has wings, Stephano is a constantly moving gym bunny and Caliban, in his bestial earthiness, cannot resist constantly fondling himself. There are both speeches and scenes, but the most powerful and moving moments are Prospero’s monologues and the two scenes between Ferdinand and Mirando. The comic characters are fine, but not the strongest.

Though there is no designer credited, the sound and lighting works towards supporting the atmosphere, but sound isn’t used nearly enough. Shakespeare’s rich description goes a long way in supporting the imagery, but the other senses are neglected, especially with this being a text-heavy piece.

Though not a bad piece by any means and Lewin’s characters are the best aspect, he tries to do too much in a minimalist one-person show. The concepts are certainly valid, but they need further clarity and justification to make this a great piece of theatre.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

Two West Country lads speed through the night as both cheerful teenagers and disillusioned twenty-somethings. They wear cheap fancy dress masks; one is Batman and the other small and indistinct – Robin, maybe?. Movement, voice and lighting states dictate time and place, with most of the action taking place in and around a car as they tear through the small town where they’ve spent their whole lives in this frenetic and occasionally unclear performance piece with a nod to performance art. Seeking to be a commentary on austerity and social responsibility, Poll Function comes across more as a general coming of age story where, though the protagonists are academically unmotivated, they struggle to come to terms with the realities of adulthood not even closely resembling the aspirations of their youth – a problem many millennials face. Though the intended message doesn’t particularly come across, the physical performances in Poll Function are excellent and the strongest feature of this work.

Greg Shewring and Jon Pascoe play these two unnamed young people. Pascoe is the leader, always behind the wheel, controlling where they go and how fast. He’s not the brightest bulb though, laddish “banter” sets the tone from the start. As the character ages and there’s an unfortunate encounter between a badger and the bumper of his car, the profundity of his language abruptly moves beyond, ‘Mate. Shut up. Slaaaags!’ and even includes frequent use of metaphor. Whilst his sentiment is lovely and captures the character’s inner frustration, it’s a dubious linguistic leap in Shewring’s script. Shewring as the quieter sidekick is the more dynamic and interesting character, and just as ably performed as his louder, dumber counterpart. Both Shewring and Pascoe show well-developed sense of physical performance, which could do with being further used in this non-linear piece.

As the car is completely mimed complete with vocal effects, it takes some time to work out if the boys are in an actual car, playing a game, or, what with the short, sharp scenes jumping back and forth through time, if the whole thing is more abstract than that. The lack of clear exposition is effective, but disarmingly unexpected and takes some time to settle into its own rhythm. Not that it’s a bad thing to wonder what’s actually happening for the first quarter of a performance, but it has the potential to be off-putting. Poll Function (a title that only tenuously comes through in the message) wouldn’t be entirely out of place in an experimental theatre venue or festival; the work reminds me a bit of Action Hero in tone and theme.

Poll Function is certainly an interesting work from new Bristol-based collective The Project, particularly as it’s their first production. Though it has some flaws, thy company are certainly off to a flying start.

Tia is fourteen and lives with her foster mum in Rochdale. She’s had a rough life growing up the care system, and no one seems to care about her. When she meets “youth worker” AJ in a kebab shop, he gives her a cigarette, offers to buy her chips and take her to a “party” in his flash car. A bit of attention and some small gifts, and Tia’s sold. She gets more than she expects in Phil Davies’ first full-length play, though. Manipulation and lies lead to her rape rewarded with new clothes, booze and fags. Not just once, but again and again. Firebird depicts the exploitation of this young woman with harrowing language and stark staging, reminding the audience that this abuse happens up and down the country. With child poverty on the rise and social media so vital to teenaged communication, the risk of this abuse is increasing; Firebird reminds us that this could happen to any young people we know. Davies’ script, episodic with large gaps in time, is sometimes lacking but good performances anchor this emotional work.

Callie Cooke is a brash, mouthy Tia with a fragile exterior often dissolving into tears. She spends a good portion of the play crying which, though she endures horrific treatment at the hands of a gang of middle-aged men and is fobbed off by police, feels superficial after a time and lacks character development. Tahirah Sharif as her new friend Katie is only in the first and last scenes set in the present that frame the abuse flashbacks, has much more depth. Phaldut Sharma is wonderfully despicable as AJ, the man who initially recruits Tia and keeps her bound to the unseen gang. Sharma also doubles as down-at-heel detective Simon who is not able to save her. More contrast between Simon and AJ wouldn’t go amiss, especially as Simon is only in one scene that Cooke dominates by crying.

Davies’ script has a simple and formulaic, but effective, structure that doesn’t interfere with the message; the gaps in time are reasonably spaced and spare the audience too much horror – but perhaps this is a bad thing? In the time he does give us, Davies manipulates audience emotions as much as AJ manipulates Tia. Again, this isn’t necessarily a negative what with the impact the show seeks to create. And the impact is a strong one. Sniffles and tears abound with unrestrained expressions of horror. In a particularly graphic scene, my normally sturdy stomach heaves at Cooke’s bloody body shakes in fear as she described to AJ what one of the men did to her. Tia’s appropriately desperate actions that land her in a wheelchair are also horrifying. With stark, bright lighting and an audience on four sides of the stage, being forced to experience audience expression in response to the action magnifies the experience.

After this seventy-minute show, I feel like I’d been put through an emotional wringer and need to lie down in a dark room for awhile. Despite the shortcomings in the script, it abounds with impact – as it should. As well as fostering awareness and understanding, Firebird is a promising piece of new writing with a couple of great performances that unveils the unimaginable horror of child sexual exploitation.

Drip.

Two middle-aged men sit in a run down office. They’re police officers, Denny and Joey. This is Chicago in the 1990s, and Denny, a family man, does what he needs to do to support his wife and kids, both legal and completely illegal. He’s a stereotypical beat cop aspiring towards a promotion that he will never get because he’s racist, abusive and addicted to drugs and fucking the prostitutes he collects protection fees from.

Drip.

Joey’s his best mate, and the complete opposite; he’s sensitive, supportive, respectful and in love with the life that Denny has. Days pass. Denny and Joey are partners in work and in life, having grown up with each other. Joey tries to talk down Denny’s stupid choices, Denny abuses him, then invites him over for dinner. Wash, rinse, repeat.

…drip…drip…

Keith Huff’s script is narration heavy, isolated and flips back and forth in time, centering around key moments leading up to arsehole tragic hero Denny’s (Vincent Regan) eventual fall. Because you can only be a racist, abusive copper for so long before your power tripping bad decisions, all relating to a particular handful of criminals, double back and bite. The dialogue scenes are far better, giving the two men a chance to connect with each other rather than opine to the audience. The narrative arc is low and slow, only gaining momentum after the interval. Though it has a sophisticated structure, Joey (David Schaal) is awarded for being a good guy but denied the spotlight by the blustering, powerful Denny. Regan is despicable, but memorable. The nice guys always hover in the background, right?

Drip.Drip.Drip.

Design is simple, but planned with precision by Ed Ullyart and Simon Bedwell. A metal table is both benign and booming, the fridge is a fridge and an echo chamber, and the constant rain is a leaky pipe with a satisfying climax, albeit one that is over long.

Dripdripdripdripdripdrip

Huff’s language doesn’t hold back, and neither does Regan’s performance. There is a bit too much exposition, and empathy with the characters doesn’t kick in until the superior second half, but by the end Denny’s unraveling, which Regan captures exquisitely, and Huff’s grittily poetic descriptions have the audience by the balls.

A Steady Rain.

Torrential rain.

Drip.

And the rain passes. The air eventually clears. All is well, but the storm’s irrevocable damage will remain. Huff’s characters help compensate for the first part of his script, but this text-based play is longer than necessary. Fortunately the performances break through the clouds.

Silence. Sunshine.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.

The witches in Macbeth are the most interesting and powerful characters in Shakespeare’s play, and the easiest to reconceptualise. I’ve seen them as nurses, children, old men, dancers and various other incarnations, with differing levels of success. In 6FootStories’ version, the company’s resident gypsy characters, Billy, Sailor and Blackmouth, play the three witches, who play all the other characters in this hour-long edit. The gypsy fortune-tellers suit the witches’ manipulative, ruthless personalities and the added layer of interpretation is handled skilfully. This three-hander loses its way slightly with the addition of slapstick elements, but good performances and a solid but versatile concept make this three-man Macbeth: A Tale of Sound a Fury thoroughly enjoyable.

Here, the witches are creatures of the earth rather than ethereal, and blend into the sinister gypsy characters well. They don’t feel human what with their grotesquely stylised movement and voice work, but actors Will Bridges, Jake Hassam and Nigel Munson switch from gypsy, to witch, to other characters with clarity and ease. Simple accessories and contrasting accents signify character changes and the cast differentiate them splendidly, taking turns to play the bigger roles. Some actor-character combos work better than others: Will Bridges is a bit too drag as Lady Macbeth, but is a wonderful Macbeth. Nigel Munson is an excellently dark Banquo. Jake Hassam as Sailor is the leader of the three, the most charismatic performer, and excels at every character he takes on. Though as a trio, they fling their energy around the tiny pub theatre and can easily suit a larger venue.

The initial animalistic aggression works brilliantly and is supported by gypsy punk music, giving way to the witches’ playacting the other characters. They return to this tone as the gypsies/witches, until Banquo’s murder, which is inexplicably comedic – an ineffective choice. Though their mocking is cruel and vicious in itself, it breaks the established convention. A further scene employs object manipulation to similar effect, and the objects used are clean and new, also clashing with the filthy aesthetic of the travelling fortune-tellers. 

There are a few other minor issues, such as not returning to the witches often enough and the random appearance of vats of spaghetti, but these are few and rare. 6FootStories thoroughly owns this Macbeth and whilst staying true to the story, adds a level of interpretation that makes this a unique production. It might be tough to follow for someone with no prior knowledge of Shakespeare’s original, but the cast bring clarity, insight and excellent performances – the ingredients of a successful Shakespeare reinvention.

The Play’s the Thing UK is committed to covering fringe and progressive theatre in London and beyond. It is run entirely voluntarily and needs regular support to ensure its survival. For more information and to help The Play’s the Thing UK provide coverage of the theatre that needs reviews the most, visit its patreon.