chaswe-28402 In spite of the professionals involved, this production is inherently amateurish. The actors give an impression of simply reading their lines, not living them. Perhaps it's the play's fault. It's stuffed with even more quotations than Hamlet. The words are so familiar that it seems impossible for any stage performance to do them justice. Watching this version it struck me that I must virtually know the whole text by heart already, and the actors were not giving these passages the delivery they required. Most of the speeches need to be thundered out with heavy, over-dramatic emphasis, not self-consciously thrown away. Macbeth questions himself to start with, sure, until his wife screws him to the sticking-point, but once in for a penny he's in for a pound. That's the way it's written. The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon ! What happened to that line ? It seemed to be completely re-written and tamely paraphrased. Williamson is an odd and different actor. He's watchable, but sometimes strangely unconvincing. He was best in the Bofors Gun, and Laughter in the Dark, both stories where the main character is his own victim. Macbeth is not fully as determinedly self- destructive as Williamson makes him out to be, and as he is portrayed in this production. Macbeth, as the play's opening tells us, was a dynamic, decisive man, conned into his crimes by his wife and the witches. Outside forces. Shakespeare is frequently concerned with the question of free will. Was Macbeth fated to take the course of action that he did ? Had he a choice ? This topic also arises in other plays.

clivey6 This was my first viewing of Macbeth. I didn't really rate it. Williamson's delivery is always a bit Leonard Rossiter, which adds some welcome and not inappropriate humour to his Hamlet, but really doesn't work for this character. Sometimes his hysterical throes with Lady Macbeth put me in mind of Rigsby and Miss Jones.The two leads don't have much chemistry or sexual chemistry. Shakespeare cuts to the chase in this play; no sooner have the witches voiced his destiny, he's licking his lips and plotting, no sooner has Lady Macbeth been informed of this via letter, she's turning murderous! It may be that the surviving play is abridged, some say. But for this to be convincing we have to see something unpleasant or visceral in the two leads just waiting to be untapped by fate, and I didn't see it here. Like, Cherie Blair would be a good Lady Macbeth, and the ambitious Gordon Brown her husband (okay, that's an unlikely alliance!) Here, you don't get the sense that their personal chemistry is the catalyst for murder and downfall. You just think, 'Are they crazy? What are they playing at?'

Sccrream97-1 Why is the otherwise lauded BBC series of the 'Complete Shakespeare Works' stopped dead in its tracks by the time they get to 'Macbeth'? Simple: An otherwise passable production with decent but not excellent casting is sabatoged by the ridiculous overracting of both Macbeths, man and wife.This is not Orson Welles nor is it Roman Polanski. Clearly, because it is more a stage production that was filmed rather than an actual film, it suffers from the infamous "Macbeth Curse". You get the impression, in fact, that they probably yelled "Macbeth Macbeth Macbeth!" on the set a bunch of times. This is indeed, more Peter O' Toole mixed in with Denzel Washington's "Julius Caesar" in terms of quality. Not to mention the set design and production values are on the level of Sesame Street (did you SEE the blue day sky?). No, scratch that. Make that Eureka's Castle.

hush-4 WARNING: if you do not know the play Macbeth, I refer to the ending, so please do not read this if you wish to keep the ending a surprise!*****Most of the later, stylized BBC Shakespeare TV-films have impressed me to some degree. Not so, Macbeth. While the highly stylized setting was effective in parts, the actors seemed to misunderstand much of the play, the ironies and character development. Lady Macbeth was especially guilty of this, during the speech in which she asks the "spirits which tend on mortal thoughts" to unsex her. The point of the speech is that Lady Macbeth is asking to be made sexless, remorseless and resolute. This Lady Macbeth, however, throws herself onto the (convenient) bed, legs spread wide in an almost masturbatory speech. I began to wonder at this point if she had actually read the play, or was being given her lines scene at a time! Sadly, the performance only got worse. Macbeth was marginally better, although the use of the "evil" rasping voice for his murderous thoughts, contrasted with the "manly" voice in the parts where his conscience is awakened makes for a very two dimensional tragic hero. Yes, that's right, Macbeth is a tragic hero, who is bought to downfall by his ambition and paranoia. Instead, the interpretation Jack Gold has given the play turns it into something resembling a 19th century melodrama, with an evil villain, pious king and Malcolm, and a heroic Macduff, completely ignoring the irony of Malcolm's statement of Macbeth as a butcher (Macduff, carrying Macbeth's head is visually the only butcher on stage) and the fiend-like Lady Macbeth (who we last saw wracked with guilt, sleep walking, only to kill herself later out of despair in the knowledge of what they have done). The introduction of the Weird Sisters, who rise out of stone was impressive. It is a pity the rest of the production did not follow suit.