Macbeth
The Other Place, Stratford-upon-Avon
⭑⭑⭑☆☆

MACBETH has been subject to so many modern adaptations since the famous Japanese film Throne of Blood. I have even seen a notable 1980s production set in a concentration camp. Daniel Raggett’s latest treatment echoes the 1950s gangster film, Joe Macbeth.

This time we are in the world of the Glaswegian Mafia. Dunsinane Castle appears to be the bar-room headquarters of a local gang. Duncan, the Godfather, is duly assassinated by his hardman lieutenant, Macbeth, with the familiar bloody consequences.

Set Designer Anna Reid has used the intimate size of The Other Place to intensify the claustrophobic tensions at play, as Sam Heughan’s Macbeth is drawn by ambition — at first sparked by the prophecies of three old women who have apparently wandered in from the streets (the witches) — and then ignited by Lia Williams’s hawkish moll of a wife.

“Blood will have blood” he complains, as he slips ever further into the isolated prison of his mind, and there is certainly plenty of blood in this production. Throughout. Raggett handles Shakespeare’s text with ambitious freedom.

Although William’s Lady Macbeth is horrified at her husband’s mental decline, she is present at the mayhem, including even the murders of Banquo and Macduff’s wife and child. Later, rather than her suicide happening off-stage, she hangs herself while Macbeth unheedingly discusses strategy with the gang.

There are engaging moments, as in the scene when Banquo’s ghost disconcertingly gatecrashes Macbeth’s celebratory banquet at which the menu consists of takeaway fish and chips, and a subtle note is struck at the end when, with the tyrant overthrown, who should enter but Fleance, Banquo’s son. Is it all going to happen again?

This is certainly the “Scottish play,” and surely many of a cast mostly making their debut at the RSC are native Scots, as they handle Glaswegian so adroitly. This does make for problems with “hearing” Shakespeare’s language, but action compensates.

There is no doubt that we have come a long way from the days when the founders of the RSC, Peter Hall and John Barton, insisted that the essence of Shakespeare lay in the language. Still, we now live in a world where the image rules.

Runs until December 6. Box Office 01789 331 111, rsc.org.uk