Shakespeare is very much on Ferdy Roberts' mind just now. Last week saw the actor and director complete a West End run of Shakespeare in Love, Lee Hall's adaptation of the 1998 film co-scripted by Tom Stoppard and Marc Norman. At the same time, Roberts had just begun rehearsals in the title role of Macbeth, in a radical new production by Filter, the company which Roberts co-founded and is one of its three co-directors. Where Shakespeare in Love is shot through with glossy West End values, Filter's Macbeth is a looser-knit and infinitely more playful affair, which exploits the play's frequent references to sound by allowing proceedings to be led by music in a way the company have previously done on Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night's Dream. In Macbeth, the action is led by the three Weird Sisters, who operate a series of home-made electronic instruments, effectively conducting the action as they invite Macbeth to join them, thus sealing his fate. “W
An archive of arts writing by Neil Cooper. Effete No Obstacle.