REVIEW | Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet, 440 Theatre

Reviews

24 Jul

★ ★ ★ ★

Reviewer - Stacy

*Disclaimer: Gifted tickets in return for an honest review

When Shakespeare comes to mind you generally visualise a straight, serious performance of Olivier proportions. But what 440 Theatre presented was something straight out of the mind of Mel Brooks, it was fast, frantic, and full of fun….how else would you want your Shakespeare served?

The set was simple, the actors were few……four to be precise and what they achieved in forty minutes was quite frankly impressive. Alice Merivale, Luke Thornton, Amy Roberts and Dom Gee-Burch may be small in numbers but their talent shone in spades.

Beautiful songs segued seamlessly into the action, the timer was set and off they went – Romeo & Juliet was up first giving the audience a highlighted reel of the Bard’s narrative (I mean they did only have 40 minutes after all). Cue multiple role playing, accents a plenty, props and the quickest of ‘costume’ changes to defy belief (the Nurse vs the Friar being a scene stealer if you please) and what you have is Shakespeare on the fast forward button.

Each actor threw 150% of their energy, effort and skill set at the performance. The pace and flow never relented, and the energy remained solid throughout. I live for spoofs of any kind so the comedy and humour was right up my street. The modern mixed with the old blended well together and the audience participation was on point, I mean who knew that a man named Pat was the cause of Romeo & Juliet’s downfall? As they say every day is a school day and I’m pretty sure my English teacher failed to mention that crucial element of the play.

Next up they served Macbeth (or should I say the Scottish play?? Just to be safe?). How wrong was I to think that this tragedy would not offer many moments for farce….I still find myself chuckling at the Witches on sticks and it’s been several days. Again the pace and energy drove the performance forward and this fab four found every ounce of humour hiding between the lines of iambic pentameter. A special shout-out must go to every death scene of the night…..milked within an inch of their lives doesn’t even do it justice.

A small note to mention is due to the fast and frantic pace and the multiple accents, I did find that diction dropped out at times, making some lines difficult to understand. Shakespeare and attention to diction go cap in hand, so care and consideration is needed so lines don’t get lost in translation.

However, 440 Theatre have something extremely special here and I would urge you all to support them and their plight to bring you Shakespeare with a bit of sass.