Dynamic duo

If you can, get to Macbeth. Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood have set a benchmark that will remain for years. Never mind impersonating the murderous couple, these two look like the genuine article. Consider Stewart. That sly and lordly head, those inscrutable little eyes, the smirking menace, the sudden changes of temper. A king, easily, or a killer of kings. And Kate Fleetwood is the most terrifying Lady Macbeth I’ve ever seen. Imagine Lauren Bacall with the eyes of a cobra. There’s a coldness and cruelty about her so palpable that it seems an aspect of her nature, not of her art. And the sexual chemistry between them, the slow hungry greed of their embraces, suggests a violent eroticism. Rupert Goold’s direction at first seems deeply conventional, perhaps even clichéd. We’re in a 1940s military dictatorship with everyone in khaki, tin hats and riding boots. But there are touches that carry the production into fresh imaginative territory, not least the decision to open the play in an operating theatre where the masked nurses are suddenly and brilliantly transformed into the witches. At times Goold’s ‘interpretation’ is too close to one’s awareness. In the banqueting scene Macbeth indulges in unscripted bullying. He laughs crazily, does camp voices, crushes a cigarette into the hair of one terrified courtier. Superfluous. The play doesn’t need to be Goodfellas to be good. Before the Ghost appears the walls swim with spots of video-generated blood — a perfunctory gesture. Then the Murderer tells Macbeth of Banquo’s death and the Ghost enters, leaps on to the table and marches accusingly straight towards him. Blackout. Interval.

The second half opens a few minutes earlier in the scene. This time Macbeth’s talk with the Murderer is done in mime and the stage is silent except for the tense, horrible rattling of cutlery.