Tag: Marjorie Yates

Electra by Sophocles, Adapted By Frank McGuinness, Richmond Theatre, 9 October 1997

Blooming heck we were culture-vulturing that autumn. This was our third theatre visit in a week – on a Thursday evening, ahead of going to a food and wine fair the next day.

Worth it though. As I put it in my log:

Electric – excellent production. Worth moving ass on a Thursday for.

Fine cast and crew – captured on Theatricalia here.

Nick Curtis wrote very highly of it in the Standard, reviewing it at Chichester. (We saw it at Richmond, on its way from the West Country to the Donmar.)

Electra Curtis StandardElectra Curtis Standard 23 Sep 1997, Tue Evening Standard (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Whereas Paul Taylor, while rating it, compared it less favourably with the Shaw/Warner version a decade or more earlier:

Electra Taylor IndyElectra Taylor Indy 24 Sep 1997, Wed The Independent (London, Greater London, England) Newspapers.com

Macbeth by William Shakespeare, Barbican Theatre, 19 February 1994

Janie is not partial to Shakespeare, but this production directed by Adrian Noble with Derek Jacobi as Macbeth and Cheryl Campbell as Lady Macbeth was quite special and we both thought it very good.

Theatricalia sets out the deal here.

I now learn that one of the three witches was Tracy-Ann Oberman, who went on (shortly after this production I think), to perform in NewsRevue/SportsRevue. Not our first sighting of her, that was in The Changeling at Stratford:

The Changeling by Thomas Middleton & William Rowley, RSC Swan Theatre, 29 October 1992

Returning to The Scottish Play, though, this is one of two productions Janie and I have seen; the other being the Tony Sher/Harriet Walter production to be Ogblogged “in the fullness”.

A couple of contemporaneous reviews survive on-line:

Here is Michael Billington’s review:

Billington On MacbethBillington On Macbeth Sat, Dec 18, 1993 – 26 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Here’s the Michael Coveney clipping:

Coveney On MacbethCoveney On Macbeth Sun, Dec 19, 1993 – 58 · The Observer (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com

Not brilliantly well received, then.