"The Tragedy Of Macbeth" by Flabbergast Theatre.

Nottingham Playhouse.

Yet another version of William Shakespeare's tragedy play, Macbeth, but as this just happens to be one of my most favourite of the Bard's plays, I do not mind at all.

With the play being so well known and beloved among theatre goers, I don't need to regale you of the storyline, even though the person right behind me, who proclaimed to be an actor, knew nothing of the play and actually had to look up the plot on Wikipedia in the interval, so I'll get straight down to business.

This presentation is quite a different beast to any other version of the play I've seen in the past, but Shakespeare has always laid itself open to doing something just a little different with his individual plays. As you enter the auditorium all the actors are on stage and look to be going through some kind of vocal and physical warm up. I could see no connection to the play but it made for an interesting watch while the audience were filing in; most actually arrived on time.

The set was minimal with something like a large dust sheet, the kind you'd use for covering furniture if you were painting with a set of drums at the back. I've seen sets even more minimal than this for Shakespeare plays, so that was fine by me.

All of the actors were covered in something like clay; maybe to show the age of the play or coming from the battlefield, and wore dirty vests and what looked like floor length skirts - even the men. 

And then the play started. I loved the idea of the minimalist set and the dusty old costumes, and I loved their interpretation of the play. They kept fairly true to the script but in the middle, where Macbeth had just murdered Duncan and there was the beating on the castle doors, was a circus clowning section with one of the actors wearing a red nose asking the audience to tell the drummer to "sshhh" and producing an apple to get the audience to "whooo" - very odd and completely off the wall.

And in the banquet scene, where Macbeth sees the ghost of Banquo, the clown comes on again and throws out party hats and there is a mini ghetto blaster to provide music. I like traditional Shakespeare but when the interpretation is as zany and unexpected as this, I also enjoyed it, especially as Macbeth is such a serios and bloody piece of theatre. Oh, and by the way, the blood was black in this as well. If you saw the Royal Shakespeare Company recent production of "Julius Caesar", you'll know what I mean.

So, we have puppetry, clowning, party hats, mud caked costumes and bodies, mask wearing, as well as music, and I loved the folk feel to the music as it just felt right to have such a wistful music style to accompany the action, and dance thrown into the mix. The dancing at times was reminiscent of The Haka. Plus, there's a really good use of slow motion acting in this version of Macbeth. I've never seen Flabbergast previously but apparently, they have a physical approach to theatre and that is well represented here.

The three witches' scenes were done really well and I loved the multi-layered vocals which created an eerie sound and feeling to their particular scenes.

I really enjoyed this interpretation of my favourite tragedy, mainly because I know the play so well, which meant that I didn't struggle to understand the action and could follow the script and the meaning. When you have that in your brain, you can appreciate the zaniness within the production.

That said, when it came down to those passionate scenes, and I'm not just talking about Lord and Lady Macbeth's scenes, there was no holding back, acting wise, physicality wise and speech wise, so everything was balanced perfectly. I do not profess to be a Shakespeare know it all; I don't think I'd get very far on Mastermind, but I know what I like, and I like this theatre company and the way they play.

The only thing that confused me slightly was the playbill which does not specify the actors and their roles and gives no production credits; this could be why there are also no details on the Nottingham Playhouse website as to who these brilliant actors are and the parts they play.

The playbill does state that the performing ensemble members are James Aubrey-Bentley, Paulina Krzeczkowska, Ross Lennon and Elliott Pritchard. I think that the "clown" figure was played by Dale Wylde and Bryony O' Callaghan played Lady Macbeth (I think), but as they were all covered in grey clay like dust, it is very hard to distinguish who played who!

Flabbergast Theatre have had a lot of fun with Macbeth but they also know just how far to go and when to stay faithful, and I liked that, and I think you will to. the younger members of the audience may just go away and learn to love Shakespeare's plays, especially if this acted as an introduction to His works.

"The Tragedy Of Macbeth" is at the Nottingham Playhouse until Saturday 10 June.