Ruth Leon recommends… MORE PERFORMANCES TO KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF
Ruth Leon recommendsMORE PERFORMANCES TO KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF -1979 Macbeth
Ian McKellen has earned the right, in his 80-odd years of flawless performances in classic plays, major contemporary work, and especially in Shakespeare, to do what he damn well likes these days and he is clearly revelling in trying all kinds of experiments just for fun.
For example, this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe has him playing Hamlet in a hybrid drama/ballet/animation of Hamlet, a role he first played nearly 70 years ago. Good for him. If he can’t do anything he likes at his age, who can?
Here, though, amongst other great performances, is what he will be remembered for, a stunning 1979 Macbeth with Judi Dench as his Lady and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
I had the privilege of seeing him in what I think were his first Edinburgh Festival performances – as Richard II and Edward II in Toby Richardson’s Prospect Theatre productions. Unsurprisingly, some of the Edinburgh matrons were shocked at the Edward II performances and walked out. Letters to The Scotsman followed about the ‘filth’ in Marlowe’s play! McKellan, though, showed that a great actor was in the making.
this is a truly great production adapted well for tv: at one point ITV Schools showed it in weekly episodes and as a schoolmaster I used this nearly every year for 35 years to show students the true greatness of WS: the poetry is superbly spoken and the cast: John Woodvine, Ian McDiarmuid (porter) Roger Rees et al are unsurpassed still. Simplicity of set and clever lighting (the witches are truly disturbing as the wyrd women..not least in the voodoo style apparitions shown to Macbeth while drugged which he then clings on to as he is left alone by all his followers) And it is right to show the last man left is his armourer-bearer Seyton (pronounced Satan…despite some snooty scholars preferring Seton)