The Fringe Club is an excellent and intimate venue for a production of Shakespeare's most intriguing tragedy. Affording the audience a closeness to the emotion with selected key scenes to move the plot swiftly on, Sweet and Sour Productions, directed by Candice Moore from Edinburgh, opened with those Weird Sisters (Jacqueline Gourlay Grant, Hamish Campbell and Vicki Rummun). They cast their manipulative spell over our hero, Macbeth (Nicholas Atkinson), and then dominated the play with their constant presence and the notion that it is their magic, their bubbling concoctions and their will that infects Macbeth with his ambition to become King of Scotland and subsequent downfall. That's why it's called a tragedy, he dies! It's not a plot spoiler, I don't feel I have to avoid giving away the ending. We don't go to see Macbeth to find out what happens, we already know (don't we?) we go to see how it's done. In this production there is a focus on the three witches who lurk in every corner seen and unseen and play Macbeth like a puppet. It's wonderful.
I loved the costumes which had an Alexander MacQueen/Vivienne Westwood tartan vibe going on and, unless a Scottish person disagrees with me, I couldn't fault the Scottish accents.
Lady Macbeth (Muriel Hoffman) was hateful, as she must be, and I was particularly impressed with the fight scene between Macbeth and Macduff (Henry Coombs) which was expertly choreographed and executed (pun intended).
Sweet and Sour Productions Ltd are an adaptable and talented lot who are not to be missed. I shall certainly be looking out for their next production.
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