Edinburgh Fringe 2025
Macbeth : The Musical
Bristol Shakespeare Festival
Venue: Studio Paradise at Augustines
Festival: Edinburgh Fringe
Low Down
This Macbeth adaptation uses clever, modern language lyrics with tunes familiar to one and all, whilst sticking resolutely to the plot. High octane, high energy throughout, this is an engaging retelling of a familiar tale about power, pursuit thereof, hubris with the occasional gratuitous bit of violence lobbed in for good measure. Yep, Will knew how to write good solid family entertainment.
Review
Shakespeare wrote plays that have proved almost infinitely bendable over the last four centuries or so. Pastiches, parodies, mash-ups, cramming a play into an action-packed fifteen minute skit, reimagined settings, time zones – you name it, somebody has done it, somewhere on the plant.
Bristol Shakespeare Festival’s Macbeth : The Musical, takes what is a complicated, unexpedited, three hour plot (with more twists and turns than the average country house maze), together with its thirty plus characters (quite a lot of whom meet a sticky end at some point) and somehow crams everything into a perfectly sized Fringe show that fizzes from start to “grizzly” denouement.
But turning Macbeth into an operetta using well known song tunes into which Shakespearian soliloquies have somehow been squeezed must have required a bucket load of ingenuity. Clearly writer/producer Rachel Waterhouse and director Justin Strathers have this in abundance given the sell-out audience’s reaction to the pulsating hour of entertainment presented on the Paradise at Augustine’s cramped stage.
Now, you all know the plot of Macbeth, right? Good. But for the one person reading this that’s not aufait with the play, it’s all about power, pursuit thereof, hubris and a generous helping of gratuitous violence. Yep, Will knew how to write good solid family entertainment.
Here, we get music from the get-go, with even the obligatory health and safety announcement delivering witty, rhyming lyrics with a conviction and energy that left no-one in any doubt as to the best place to stick their smartphone.
We then dive straight into the action, deploying clever new lyrics to familiar songs from Queen, Abba, Spice Girls, Bee Gees, Beach Boys and The Proclaimers, to name but a few, as the plot unfolds with breathtaking speed. And whilst pop and rock did most of the heavy lifting, there was creative use of other genres, even including something from the Cole Porter songbook as I’ve Got You Under My Skin received a very creative makeover.
Favourite moments (judging by audience reaction) included a parody of Bohemian Rhapsody with the unforgettable “Is this a real knife” as its first line; irony with the Bee Gees Stayin’ Alive used to set out the impending doom about to strike Macduff’s family; and Abba’s Mama Mia energetically reinvented by the three witches as they foretold Macbeth’s future, or lack of it.
The hard-working cast of just six (five girls, and one token bloke to do the Macbeth bit) go through a dizzying array of costume changes as they flip between characters, building on a well chosen base of white tops and black trousers by adding sashes (often helpfully depicting the name of the character they’re representing in that instant), hats, tops, scarves and other accessories.
And they really do work proverbial their socks off. The numbers fold into each other almost seamlessly, leaving cast (and audience) almost perpetually short of breath. Scene changes are frequent and slick. Accent changes help differentiate their many and varied roles. Choreography is best described as enervating as the whole thing buzzes with a frenetic energy.
This is a well-drilled sextet, clearly enjoying what they’re presenting to an audience which, judging from their ebullient reaction both during and at the show’s end, were engaged throughout. Whilst some of the voices were showing the strain of a week’s worth of belting out fast paced lyrics at pretty much full volume, the music held together nicely.
It’s a fun piece of theatre, one where you’ll leave feeling uplifted as well as wondering just how they packed so much into a short hour. I saw the last in the run at this Fringe but, with most shows sold out in their short run, there’s always the hope they’ll come back in 2026. If so, I thoroughly recommend you check it out. Bristol Shakespeare Festival has produced a winner.
