Rating:
Some Macbeths come out swinging, like big-hitting Alpha males.
Not Oscar-nominated Ralph Fiennes in this fascinating new production of Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy, which opened in Liverpool last night, ahead of dates next year in Edinburgh, London – and Washington DC.
Playing a knuckle-dragging primate would be way too obvious for Fiennes's edgy and tortured, thinker soldier. Damn near bashful at first, he can scarcely bring himself to meet the eyes of Duncan, King of Scotland, whose job he secretly covets.
But he is egged on, in this modern dress version of the supernatural tragedy, by three refugee witches – and a svelte and suave Indira Varma, as his ravening wife.