Macbeth - Ashcroft Theatre (Croydon)

Preview by Lizzie Guilfoyle

THIS autumn, Macbeth gets the Shakespeare 4 Kidz treatment when it visits Croydon’s Ashcroft Theatre on October 19 (at 1.30pm and 7.30pm) and October 20, 2009 (at 10am and 1.30pm).

Shakespeare 4 Kidz’ plays use the most famous lines from the original texts, weave them into modern language, add some songs and dances into the mix and the result is a two hour entertainment which everyone – even the youngest primary children – can understand.

The whole plot is retained and all the major characters are there too, to tell the blood-soaked story of the murderous Scottish warrior who, egged on by the prophecies of three weird witches and the ambitions of his evil wife, removes every obstacle in his path until he can seize the throne for himself.

Jason Lee Scott (as Macbeth) leads a 14-strong company.

Many theatre folk believe the play to be jinxed, so lots of celebrities have been sending the company good luck wishes, including Stephen Fry, King of the Jungle Joe Pasquale and West End actor Jonathan Pryce, who had his own bad luck stories to tell after playing Macbeth.

“When I played him in Stratford, before the first night Lady Macbeth had an accident and fractured her collar bone. I fell head first down the stairs on stage and for the first time forgot my lines in the middle of a soliloquy. At the Barbican I got stuck in the lift with the three witches and was rescued just in time to make my reappearance.”

Award-winning star Matthew Kelly told S4K: “I’m sending you loads of good luck for your forthcoming production of the Scottish play. When I was at drama college I played the Porter – in a sort of vaudeville fashion! It’s still one of my greatest memories – doing that great play.”

And Star Wars veteran Dave “Darth Vader” Prowse said: “Don’t worry about The Play. The Force will be with you.”

Macbeth has been very well received each of the five times it has toured since its premiere in 2000 and its creator Julian Chenery is confident that the play will be a winner once again. But as he reveals:

“The famous curse is something we’ve had our share of in the past. In the autumn of 2000 we had incessant rain for three months which affected all of our get-ins and get-outs; a national fuel strike which made it nigh impossible to move the production around the UK; the actor playing Banquo hit his head on the windscreen of the cast coach; the actor playing King Duncan went down with Bell’s Palsy making half his face freeze and one of the stage crew walked into a door and fractured her skull. Apart from that the show was a huge hit and has remained immensely popular ever since!”

For more information visit the Shakespeare 4 Kidz Website

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