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Speed sabotages subtlety
GORDON PARSONS sees a rapid-fire production of Macbeth that allows no pause for thought

Macbeth
Royal Shakespeare Theatre
Stratford-upon-Avon

UNDENIABLY, there's an operatic quality to all of the Bard’s tragedies. The individual actor playing the protagonist controls the impact of the play and Christopher Eccleston's Macbeth is no noble Scottish captain but rather an unimaginative, bullet-headed northern squaddie.

That is, until he meets the weird sisters who, in Polly Findlay’s production, are three seemingly delightful little girls playing “innocently” with their dolls.

With the possibility of seizing the crown embedded into his mind, Macbeth can’t wait for the wheelchair-bound, geriatric Duncan to leave the scene naturally. Speedily, he gets on with seeing the old man off.

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