MACBETH IS WICKED FUN

Specialist theatre group opens the world of Shakespeare to a younger audience.

The notorious Scottish Play – Macbeth – gets the Shakespeare 4 Kidz treatment this autumn, when the show visits Croydon’s Ashcroft Theatre on 19 and 20 October. It’s full of weird witches and spooky spells that make Harry Potter and his friends look like amateurs. There are bloody battles, gruesome ghosts and even a forest that moves.

S4K’s Macbeth has been 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, despite the fact many theatre folk believe the play to be jinxed.

“The famous curse is something we’ve had ourshare of in the past,” said Julian.

“In the autumn of 2000, we had 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” 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 kids – 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.

S4K’s Macbeth is atthe Ashcroft Theatre, Croydon on Monday, 19 October, at 1.30pm and 7.30pm, and on Tuesday, 20 October, at 10am and 1.30pm.

Tickets are on sale now from the box office on 020 8688 9291.

From the YOUR CROYDON website (CLICK HERE To download a pdf of this month's copy )