have we eaten on the insane root?

Posted on 11th May 2025

It’s been a little over a year since the You’re Bard company last visited the Corn Hall. On that occasion, A Midsummer Night’s Dream was given a mauling and I ended up on stage pretending to be a lobster, or perhaps a chicken, and it still gives me nightmares. It was, therefore, with some trepidation that I settled down to watch Macbeth get the once over from the company.

The play was chosen at random, as was the allocation of parts, and you have to marvel at the actor’s ability to throw themselves into a role given a moment’s notice of both play and character. There is something heroically stupid at putting that much effort in, only for the result to be so utterly preposterous. Apart from having to play each act in a different style, be that sci-fi, spy or pre-school, the audience was invited to shake (Britney) Spears – see what they did there – whereupon, via tombola, further indignities would be imposed. Raspberries (the noise, not the fruit) handcuffs and underwater swimming battled for attention with a snake impressions, water pistols and Spiderman. The ensemble cast each gamely played their part, as did the members of the audience called upon to message, or be a tree, but a special shout out is due to Beth Organ who channelled both Shatner and Connery in her guise of Macbeth, while Murray Andrews turned Lady Macbeth into an alarmingly convincing Cruella de Vil. 

Perhaps most disconcerted, however, was the moment the company experienced a channel swap, and found themselves doing Hamlet. “We do this straight, do we?” asked Beth, before launching into a credible rendition of the final scene of the play. The way the cast clicked into their respective roles was equally impressive, and it did beg the obvious question. What would Shakespeare look like done straight, as Beth put it, by this company? I’d wager they would have a fair crack at it