Happy Birthday To Me

It was my birthday on Monday, so as a present from the other half we went down to the West End and The Gielgud Theatre on Shaftesbury Avenue to see a modern re-telling of that Scottish play of Shakespeare's with Patrick Stewart in the lead as Macbeth himself.

For some reason on other, I'd realised that I've never seen one of Shakespeare's plays performed live, and well, it's always interesting to try something at least once, I told the other half when it was obviously not her cup of tea.

As it was, we both really enjoyed it. For something that ran for about three hours (including the interval) there really only was one act when things slowed down and I got a bit bored. The other half, in fact, actually nodded off but then she managed the same feat in the middle of a loud song and dance routine at a musical we saw in New York, so I wasn't too surprised.

So asides from that one dip, the rest of the play was suitably intense. The setting was in more modern times in a somewhat Stalinesque Russia which suited the treachery and greed for power that unfolds within the story perfectly.

Newsreel shots of parading soldiers played across the walls and an atmospherically smokily back-lit clanking lift centre-stage brought characters in and out of the story with some style.

The three witches in particular, re-imagined here as field hospital nurses or serving girls flitting around in the background until the lighting dims, heart monitor traces illuminate the walls and they take centre stage with their echoing words foretelling the future are just wonderfully evil.

So a pretty original (for me) and excellent time was had on my birthday.