Chatterbox - still talking nonsense

The first striking thing about this production is that it is almost completely monochrome,  A large white stage with a dark glass backdrop, all of the cast in black or grey, except Lady Macbeth (Cush Jumbo) in glowing white.  This means that you can't miss the blood. The play opens with a bloodied Macbeth (David Tennant) washing himself clean, bloodying the bowl of water, bringing red into that monochrome colour scheme,  and then we are into the play proper with the disembodied witches swirling around in our ears.    We were in the cheap seats as usual, but as ever in this intimate theatre it doesn’t make too much difference. Apart from a few times when sight lines didn't work for those of us in the circle, we were so close to the action that we didn't miss much.  This is a tight ensemble cast, all excellent, and I loved the broad Scottishness of it all, from the accents to the music.  This was a fairly short version of the play at 1 hour 55 minutes wi...

This was a play we have been anticipating for two years so we weren’t going to let the little matter of a tube strike put us off. This isn’t a subtle play but it’s certainly powerful and I’d say it is even more timely after being delayed by Covid and in this age of high populism. The play charts how an ordinary-ish man goes on a Faustian journey from going along with, then is complicit, leading to full immersion in the Nazi project of genocide. The challenge of standing up to something that you know is wrong but might be ‘Good’ for an individual but bad for others is explicitly called out and the fact that David Tennant’s Halder doesn’t believe the ‘anti-jewish rubbish’ makes his complicity even more painful as he betrays his family and friends for his own good life. We’d talked over dinner before the play about what gives life value, and had an interesting discussion in the interval about climate change protest and what is and isn’t acceptable, which shows how live these issues are. H...