McBlog

Last Friday night we took Nykolai to see “Just MacBeth”, Andy Griffiths’ version of The Scottish Play performed by members of the Bell Shakespeare Theatre Company. A bunch of kids and adults at the Arts Center to witness the impossible. Seems that MacBeth isn’t all about tragedy but is actually a comedy – who knew?

Andy Griffiths is an Australian author who’s a number kids books that Nykolai enjoys, so when we found out that he was working with Bell Shakespeare on a MacBeth variant, we just had to go. What a great way to introduce Nykolai to Shakespeare.

Mapping Andy’s main characters of Andy, Lisa and Duncan into MacBeth, Lady MacBeth and Banquo, the story takes us from current day 12 year olds back to the Scottish hills. With school level effects (mostly via rear projection and an overhead projector), lots of fart sounds, audience participation, a fair bit of original dialogue and some adlibbing, the play brings comedy and fast paced fun while still putting across the message of tragic loss.

If you ever wondered how marshmellows, whiz fizz, skateboards, karaoke, no undies, drag shows, garden gnomes and a food processor could be applied successfully to MacBeth, this is the show for you. With plenty of humour for the adults as well as the kids it is well worth going to. Hopefully they’ll do it again to another classic play.