The Scottish play may not be a particular favourite of mine but frankly I would watch James McAvoy read the phonebook any day of the week.
What definitely makes this production stand out was the time and place it is set in, namely a terrible future, post-apocalyptic version of Scotland. Like the play itself the design, courtesy of Soutra Gilmour, is pretty bleak and brutal, and it makes the audience feel alienated.
James McAvoy was great, obviously. But the play itself drags on at certain points and I'm not too sure where the problem lies. Jamie Lloyd is one of my favourite directors and while I think he's done a great job on this one, the energy gets lost sometimes. Also, I'm not too sure about Claire Foy's Lady Macbeth. I always thought of Lady Macbeth as a strong woman - stronger than her husband - at least in the first couple of acts, and only then things start to unravel and she loses it. Yet from the moment Claire Foy appears on stage and brings her famous monologue ("Come, you spirits...unsex me here") she seems hysterical and frankly, a bit mad. Shame, because that way the contrast between her behaviour before and after Macbeth's deeds disappears and it makes her a less interesting character.