Comedy
By Tempest Productions
Noodle Palace at Central – Hokkein House
Thursday 29 January
Review by Lucy Rutherford

The first half of Macbeth-ish… is basically a very long set up to a joke. A set up exactly as long as it takes to act out Macbeth in under forty-five minutes.

If you aren’t familiar with William Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth have no fear, as Tempest Productions neatly summarises the most important parts of the play in a way that made me wonder what they’d left out. In fact, during the first half of I thought I had stumbled across a minimalist but very professional Shakespeare company. The actors excelled at their lines and parts as if they were performing at the Globe itself. But aside from the use of comic props such as foam swords and the actors themselves creating the sound effects from behind the red curtain that served as the backdrop of the stage, this shortened version of Macbeth seemed as tragic as the original.

However, this straightforward retelling is merely to ensure the audience completely understand the jokes that are to follow in the encore. They take their already abridged version and shorten it again, twice. And hilarity ensues. The props and sound effects, which initiated chuckles first time round had the crowd openly laughing, partly from relief that this was a comedy we’d come to, but mostly from the melodrama and humour that, revealed to us by Tempest Productions, was in Macbeth all along.

Shakespeare was as well known for his comedies as he was for his tragedies. Macbeth-ish… shows that those two genres aren’t so dissimilar, and that one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies actually has all the ingredients for a great comedy.

Macbeth-ish… runs until the 31st of January and from the 4th to the 7th of February at the Noodle Palace at Central, and for one night at Midlandia on the 5th of February. You can buy tickets here