MacBeth: The Play That Had Tension, Drama & Unexpected Twists and Turns!

Hello world! Welcome back to another blog! In this blog, where it is also the year the most iconic playwright and poet William Shakespeare born and died on this day, I will be talking about my theatre visit to watch The Tragedy of Macbeth, performed by Nottingham Shakespeare Company which took place on 1st March 2025 aka my birthday!

As mentioned on the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust website, the plot of the play is as follows:

"Three witches tell the Scottish general Macbeth that he will be King of Scotland. Encouraged by his wife, Macbeth kills the king, becomes the new king, and kills more people out of paranoia. Civil war erupts to overthrow Macbeth, resulting in more death."

The performance I saw was an NO FX show, meaning that there was no special effects (like drippy drippy blood), there was no flashing lights and the actors wore all blacks, but I quite liked it for many reasons. Firstly because as someone who is prone to sensory overload, I didn’t have to worry about that, but also I could concentrate more on listening to the story. So it definitely had the best of both worlds. And the set may looked simple, but the way they filled the space not just infront of the audience, but also used the whole of the church made it even more immersive!

The whole cast did a brilliant performance on this intense Shakespeare tragedy, but I’ll mention a few who stood out to me in particular. 

Jack Dillon took on the titular role, and boy he gave it everything he got! After working with him during sessions with The Actors Workshop Nottingham, I knew he would be amazing! Full of intensity, drama and he made the character someone you do not want to mess with. And whilst we were congratulating him on his performance, someone said that he was better than an established actor who took on the role. I mean, you can’t get much of a bigger compliment than that can you? So well done Jack! 

Emma Webber took on the role of Lady Macbeth. I thought her interpretation was beautiful, and the way she effortlessly delivers her lines was enchanting to see. And kudos to her for interacting with the audience, but if that were me to be interacted with, I would need some pre warning to avoid sensory overload lol! And after learning that Lady Macbeth was meant to be the real villain, I had a feeling that it was moments like this where not all villains were born evil. I also loved the on stage chemistry between her and Jack, showing the passion that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth had during the high stakes story.

The Three Witches (Margarita Loginova, Querida Louindoula and Andy Canadine) also did a great job at their roles, capturing the physicality, voice and facial expressions to be these iconic mythical creatures. But Margarita was my favourite in particular. Even without the full on costume, the physicality she gave and her facial expressions are what drew me in, and I don’t think I would want to get on her bad side. But that’s when you know that they played the role well, when you can’t take their eyes off of them.

Finally, Michelle-Louise Wright took on the role of The Porter. This was a nice way to break the dramatic sequence, as even though Macbeth is one of the more dramatic, high stakes intense plays, it was great to add some humour in between to break it up. And Michelle did it beautifully, and even though I haven’t met her in person, she seems like the type of person who is quite quirky and bubbly in real life! She also did an amazing job of directing the whole thing, and whether the No FX performance was her idea or not, it certainly worked for me personally. 

I think I only have two downsides, and that was that I still don’t fully understand the story of Macbeth, but with time and seeing more performances like this, I’m sure my knowledge of it will be like riding a bike. The other is that I wish I couldn’t seen the performances with full costume and makeup, but also after thinking about my sensory overload, I think the lighting would’ve put me off. 

And that was my review of Macbeth. Let me know if you saw this show by this company and your thoughts on it. And please see the link below so that you can read about the company, upcoming auditions and how you can support them to keep going and to put on amazing art in a venue near you!

Nottingham Shakespeare Company

See you soon for another blog. Until next time…

This is The Autistic Actress signing off :)