Murder and Mayhem - told by three!

Say "old Bill " and I am usually off but "Old Bill" Shakespeare knows how to give it to you straight. Macbeth is as black a villain as you could meet. Or is he? Ambition is a funny thing and his was to be King. To get there he had to kill Duncan and then Banquo. Once one crime had been committed the sencond comes easy - so I'm told. But the deed plays heavily on his mind and torments him. Eventually McDuff catches up with him and it's "end of Sportsnight".

Simple story but it's the way Andrew Potter tells it that gets me. He uses the devices of a Dr Jekyll and Mr hyde to pull him the two ways between right and wrong. Now the clever bit is that a cast of hundreds is whittled down to three.

Neil Harman as Jekyll is solid and believable while Ivanhoe Norona as the cigar smoking Hyde was electric. Just when you'd got to know them a flick of a screen turned them into Laurel and Hardy to bring a period of hilarity and much needed relief to this tale of villany. And this was the theatrically brilliant part, for while Andrew Potter's performance as Macbeth was as commandingly believable as we've come to expect, it was Potter the director who shone through. Back projection onto a screen was used to help the story along and screens were used as arches and dividers as the plot progressed.

Pot plants were pulled across the stage to represent a moving forest. Finally his death was lit in blood red. Breathtaking technical direction and I wasn't the only one who thought so. It left the audience gasping. Just a pity there weren't more of them here to gasp.

We're told that Wildcard's next production takes an affectionately irreverent eye upon the Book of Genesis and will contain some nudity - that might put a few more clothed bums on seats. No matter what - I'll be there.