A Bard Day's Night

Reviews: The Tragedy of Macbeth (3 stars); Boris the Third (3 stars); Hamlet with Ian McKellen (2 stars)

feature (edinburgh) | Read in About 2 minutes
Published 07 Aug 2022
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The Tragedy of Macbeth, photo by Michael Lynch

The Tragedy of Macbeth is a sensory interpretation of the Scottish play by Flabbergast Theatre, heightened even by smell as red wine and the players' hard-working sweat wafts in the air. Drums, harmonies and chimes make an inventive soundscape, adding texture and rhythm to the play. The interplay between Lady Macbeth and the new Thane of Cawdor is suffused with a vital physicality, which puts across the animalistic ambition underpinning the plot. Shakespeare's words are a little harder to connect with, often voiced richly but carefully, in an otherwise animated performance which makes for a Macbeth that feels both like a Fringe and a full scale production.

Boris the Third, photo by Andrew Pugsley

A walk down Drummond Street, to Pleasance's oldest space, finds the Bard reimagined in Boris the Third: a pleasing and fun hour that tells the story of a teenage Boris Johnson performing as Richard III at Eton College. Harry Kershaw's Boris bumbles with the charm and disarming upper-class politeness that won over the English electorate. The play sets up plenty: the school production within the play and the comedic parallels between Richard III and Boris. Plus, the early 1980s political references parallelling with our own time (did Boris have a 'party' in his room?). It lacks the intricate plotting of both its protagonists and doesn't all pay off. Yet, it has a winning charm and is effective in putting over the teenage Boris' arrested development and cocoon of his privilege.

Johan Christensen and Ian McKellen as Hamlet, photo by Devin de Vil

Over at Ashton Hall in Saint Stephen's, Stockbridge, Ian McKellen is now, at 83, playing the young Dane Hamlet. Or he's playing one of the Hamlets in Hamlet with Ian McKellen, in a confused, and confusing, ballet. If the artistic intentions are clear at all, it's hard to get on board. A costume change which sees our two Hamlets in technicolour shirts, patterned like Elmer the Elephant, is a choice attempting to signify something – but what? Is Hamlet zany? It's hard to know which Hamlet to be distracted by as one or the other seems, unaccountably, to be on stage stalking another production.