Macbeth

Sewell Barn Theatre, Norwich

It is 400 years since Shakespeare's blood-soaked 'Scottish Play' first began thrilling audiences.

With its themes of greed, betrayal and the murderous allure of power as relevant today as ever, the opportunity afforded by the Sewell Barn's intimate ambience of seeing the whites of the

cursed thane's eyes was not to be missed.

Macbeth is laden with scenes whose visceral power has ensured its familiarity even to those with only a passing knowledge of English literature.

In the spectral gloom of this traditional production, the cast combined ably to depict the extremes of human nature's fallibility.

Noel James imbued his Banquo with easy, good-natured decency and Louise Brighton was a convincing Lady

Macbeth, particularly compelling during the famous sleepwalking scene.

But with the full weight of this play's message on his shoulders, Peter Moore Fuller delivered a standout lead performance.

Donnish and almost bumbling at the start, his Macbeth by degrees shifted from measured calculation via nervous instability to wild-eyed frenzy.

As a story of one man's inexorable slide into moral bankruptcy, Macbeth will always entertain.

It is to this production's credit that it manages to communicate the full implications of this as a nature-defying aberration.