The Stage

Macbeth

Published Monday 20 June 2011 at 15:10 by Pat Ashworth

Oddsocks’ summer tour is so eagerly anticipated that audiences scorn the weather and will happily camp out in the rain in whatever grassy space or courtyard the company sets up its ramshackle wagon. They’ll even put candelabra on the picnic tables.

A scene from Macbeth at Macbeth Thoresby Lawns, Newark

They’re not disappointed in this romping Macbeth, a parody of all things Scottish. The cast of five is augmented by floppy ginger puppets and aided by the comic use of masks and terrible beards, along with the inevitable swirling of kilts and uttering of Scots dialect. The one hapless Malcolm among the audience ends up with a prominent role, which generates huge amounts of fun.

The actors roam all over the wagon, banging their heads as they clamber up to the rickety roof to plant rudimentary ravens or to do away with the sleeping guards outside Duncan’s chamber.

Andy Barrow’s Macbeth goes to absurd lengths to make himself invincible for the final Ironman v Braveheart showdown with Macduff (Andrew McGillan), while Kathryn Levell’s Lady Macbeth is an Essex girl with her eye firmly on the main chance.

Amid all the visual jokes about trifles, the lisping about thanes, the dangling daggers and the ad-libbing about deep-fried Mars bars, the truly remarkable thing about Oddsocks is that they still manage to stick to the story and to tell it well.

That’s no mean feat, especially when they’re also their own stage hands and dressers, hauling on the pulleys for scene changes one minute and quick-changing the next. Glorious stuff.