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.

Clocking in at two hours, Macbeth is a faithful retelling of the play with no significant cuts for the purists who like their Thanes wordy. In case the Macbeth play (insert the Blackadder exorcism ritual in your head) is unfamiliar, it is William Shakespeare’s loose interpretation of the last days of the real-life Macbeth of Scotland. He takes dramatic license in the telling by portraying the general to King Duncan, who recently returned from a bloody civil war in his homeland. 

On the way back to his wife and home, Macbeth and his lieutenant Banquo find themselves in the woods with three supernatural witches who present them with a prophecy that the war hero interprets as his ascension to the throne. His obsession with their words eventually corrupts both he and his Lady as they conspire to make their fates true through their own nefarious machinations. 

As a lifelong fan of Shakespeare interpretations in all mediums, I’ve seen Macbeth performed live several times, most recently at the Lincoln Center’s staging in 2014 with Ethan Hawke as the doomed Scot. Every production is a startling reminder of just how many of its lines have remained woven into our modern vocabulary, from “Blood will have blood” to “What’s done cannot be undone” and so many more in between. Because of its supernatural elements and heightened stakes, Macbeth always has the potential for kinetic staging. But it can also, if done poorly, quickly get mired in Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s monologues. 

Webster’s production firmly lands in the former, possessing some of the best production blocking, character choreography, support staging, and creative sound design (supported here with immersive 5.1 cinema surround sound) I’ve ever experienced with this play. He employs a minimalist using a white elevated square that takes up the center of the room to be used as the performer’s base. It’s surrounded on three sides by audience members. On the far back wall is an enclosed glass case for the actors to be seated as observers and commentators of the action as needed, along with some serving as musicians who play stringed instruments to land scenes of a celebration or sorrow. 

During the interval return, there’s even the use of an upper stage ledge that touches the audience, which practically begs for interaction by actor Jatinder Singh Randhawa, who begins his scene as if he’s a modern comedian jibbing the crowd until he transitions into the lines of the Porter and soberingly brings the audience back into the play; it’s an unusual but original way to approach this typically less memorable character. 

The whole cast is impressive, with several actors playing multiple parts or the aforementioned instruments. In particular, I was deeply moved by Noof Ousellam’s emotional expression of Macduff, a character who experiences unconscionable loss and makes you feel it to your soul. Also, young actor Casper Knopf does outstanding work, making us sympathetic towards two of the characters he plays who are murdered quite starkly right before us. He helps bring the stakes of the play, and all its verbal machinations, into stark reality.

Then there’s Tennant and Jumbo, who give memorably intense and passionate interpretations of the ambitious couple. Each finds genuinely interesting and fresh ways into their character’s signature monologues, with Jumbo particularly bringing a measured yet tragic air to the Lady’s manifestations of guilt. Tennant is a force at times, and at others, is almost as scholarly as Macbeth, especially when he speaks directly to the camera throughout, as if we’re privy to his inner thoughts as he works through Macbeth’s initial guilt, misgivings, and then eventual hubris in orchestrating circumstances with his wife to gain the crown for himself. Tennant evolves into a live wire of dark conviction, becoming a monster before our very eyes. Yet he lands Macbeth’s "a tale told by an idiot” monologue with unexpectedly sympathetic weight, a man full of self-recrimination and fait accompli. 

The other star of this show is the sound design, which relays the Bard’s lines and intentions in exceptional ways. For example, the witches in this production are presented only as disembodied voices that envelop and swirl around Macbeth and Banquo (Cal MacAninch), and the audience, with their prescient words. Later, we’ll hear the echo of their ghostly whispers haunting the Macbeths. Or, there are smart insertions of the sounds of battle and even the sobering thud of a body in the distance, all of which add weight to the piece in ways the dialogue can’t always get across. 

In short, get thee to this version of Macbeth if you’re a Shakespeare stan or even just a Tennant or Jumbo appreciator. They carve their own spaces with these classic characters, and together with this inventive production, they inform the play in ways that the best productions have done throughout the ages. 

Donmar Warehouse's Macbeth opens exclusively in theaters across the U.S. beginning Wednesday, February 5, 2025.