“Feast for the senses” in Stafford Castle’s Macbeth

Published: 22 June 2018
Reporter: Steve Orme

Nabil Stuart (Macbeth) in rehearsal
Daniel Cahill as Macduff
Heritage Opera Company with Carmen

Stafford Festival Shakespeare’s production of Macbeth will be “inspired by today’s cultural thirst for supernatural and historical fiction genres” such as Game of Thrones, The Tudors, Wolf Hall and the Harry Potter series.

The play, which will be performed in the open air at Stafford Castle, will offer audiences a “sensual, vital, highly visual and visceral production with a vibrant score” and will be a “supernatural feast for the senses”.

Director Clare Prenton said the play reaches out to everyone. “There are many appeals to the play: its richness of language and poesy, it’s pace and economy and the way it appeals to the imagination in creating a world that is at a more spiritual and superstitious period in history.

“It gallops in pace and captures audiences’ imaginations. Yet there are themes pertinent to the 21st century too—politics, envy, evil. Political instability, tyrannical leadership, tensions between England and Scotland, childlessness and a marriage under the microscope—these are all themes and ideas we can understand immediately.”

Stafford Festival Shakespeare spokesman Thomas Waldron added, "more than 7,600 people have already booked their tickets for the show, which is only a few hundred short of the total number of people who came to see The Tempest last year. Anyone who hasn’t booked their ticket yet is urged to do so quickly as some performances are nearing capacity.”

Scottish actors will play several of the roles. Nabil Stuart, born in Forres on the Moray coast, will play Macbeth. His previous Shakespearean roles include Caliban in The Tempest, a Barbican production at St Giles Church, Cripplegate, London in 2011.

Rosie Hilal plays Lady Macbeth. She has performed in productions for the Royal Shakespeare Company, taking the role of Audrey in As You Like It and Marianna in All’s Well That Ends Well, both in 2013, while in 2015 she was at Shakespeare’s Globe playing Electra in Antony and Cleopatra and Marianna in Measure for Measure.

Daniel Cahill and Ceri-Lyn Cissone play Macduff and Lady Macduff. Sian Mannifield, Nicola Jo Cully and Mairi Hawthorn are the witches. Morgan Philpot, who was Antonio in the Stafford Festival Shakespeare 2017 production of The Tempest, returns to play Banquo. Howard Chadwick, who played Brabantio in Othello at Stafford Castle in 2016, takes the dual roles of Seyton and the porter.

Greg Powrie plays Duncan, Samuel Pashby is Malcolm and Blair Kincaid is Donalbain. Ewan Somers is Ross, David Colvin plays Siward and Mathew Tomlinson is Angus.

Production designer Simon Kenny makes his SFS debut and David Hewson is musical director. Fight director is Alison De Burgh, movement director is Kane Husbands and Mel Churcher is voice coach.

Macbeth runs at Stafford Castle from Thursday 28 June until Saturday 14 July.

As part of the festival, Heritage Opera Company will stage an open-air performance of Bizet’s Carmen on Sunday 1 July.

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