David Tennant & Cush Jumbo's West End 'Macbeth' Is an Exhilarating Watch
As William Shakespeare once proclaimed through Jaques in As You Like It: “All the world’s a stage…” In theory, yes. However, if you seek world-class productions of Bard’s great works, they are usually very location-specific. Unless you’ve got an inexhaustible income, seeing many of those plays in person will not be conducive to thine wallet. Thankfully, some productions get recorded live and post-produced for eventual sale, television broadcasts (see PBS’ Great Performances), or a limited cinema that brings those previously untenable theater experiences into our grateful eyeballs.
Granted, not all these tapings can capture the magic of the in-person experience. However, Donmar Warehouse’s staging of Macbeth, starring David Tennant (Rivals) as the eponymous character and Cush Jumbo (Criminal Record) as his Lady Macbeth, will have its extended moment in specially booked cinemas across the United States starting February 5, 2025. The play provides a stirring and often mesmerizing interpretation of the classic play, even on the small screen.
This particular Macbeth production ran from October 1 through December 14, 2024, at the Harold Pinter Theater in the West End of London. Max Webster (Life of Pi) directs and cleverly stages the fraught return of the Thane of Glamis (aka Macbeth) within the intimate confines of a black box theater. This presentation cuts together the best takes captured over several nights of the production (as evidenced by some disappearing blood on Tennant’s neck in the show’s first minutes). It gives every performer a strong showcase of their talents.
