Displaying items by tag: Max Webster

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EARNEST

UK, 2025, 179 minutes, Colour.

Ncuti Gatwa, Hugh Skinner, Sharon D.Clarke, Eliza Scanlon, Ronke Adekoluejo, Amanda Lawrence, Richard Cant, Julian Bleach.

Directed by Max Webster.

Once again, Oscar Wilde’s celebrated last play, from 1895.

In 1952, there was the straightforward basic staging as a drawing room comedy film, top English cast led by Michael Redgrave and Dame Edith Evans (and her still remembered classic outraged “handbag”!). It is frequently repeated for screenings on SBS World Movies and so readily available for audiences today.

There have been quite a number of filmed stage versions, even featuring David Suchet as Lady Bracknell.

There was also the 2001 version, very strong cast led by Colin Firth and Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell, but with something of an eye to modern tastes, even imagining Gwendolyn with a tattoo and the idea that Lady Bracknell began her career in the music hall. There were also some notable (inexplicably) omissions from the text.

Now here is the film version of the National Theatre’s 2025 production, complete text to delight those who have appreciated it for a long time. But the word definitely not to be used here is “straightforward”. This is not exactly a straightversion. Commentators on the play have referred to the “queer codes” inserted by  Wilde, implicit references.

An unexpected opening sets the tone, Ncuti Gatwa (television’s Dr Who)  in a pink gown, playing the piano, a Grieg Symphony,  joined by the cast dancing around the piano. Then, stopping suddenly, the curtain opening – and we are back in 1895.

The opening is familiar, Jack visiting Algy, the conversation, Jack’s love for Gwendolyn, the imminent arrival of Lady Bracknell… And the mystery of Jack being Jack in the country and Earnest in the city and Algernon and his creation of his sick friend, Bunbury, whom he has to visit to comfort at a moment’s notice. Themes of deception, relationships. But, while Hugh Skinner as Jack gives an effective performance, he is quite overshadowed so often by Ncuti Gatwa, Jack almost playing straight man (the technical comedy term) to Algernon’s flamboyant domination of the friendship and the play.

It is apt to describe the production as camp in style, manner and mannerisms, but a great deal of posing, lots of postures, running and shuffling around the stage and a great deal of innuendo.

Every audience waits to see what Lady Bracknell is going to be like, a dominating presence, her articulation of opinions, her capacity for being shocked and astounded. Sharon D. Clarke certainly dominates this production – with “handbag” voiced in low, deep dismay. She controls the main two scenes in which she is present, both snobbish and exploitative when tempted by money and class.

Australian Eliza Scanlan is a forthright Sicily. Ronke Adekoluejo is an unexpectedly knowing Gwendolyn, hyperactive (sometimes irritatingly so) and extrovert in the innuendo in a very cheeky tone. Audiences will enjoy the performers playing Miss Prism, Canon Chasuble and the actor playing the two servants.

It is probably correct to say that Oscar Wilde would have enjoyed this particular interpretation of his play, making explicit the issues in his own life and relationships, but we also remember that this was his last play, the court case, his public humiliation, imprisonment and lonely death.

MACBETH

UK, 2025, 114 minutes, Colour.

David Tennant, Cush Jumbo, Cal MacAninch, Noof Ousellam, Moyo Akande, Casper Knopf, Jatinder Singh Randhawa, Rona Morison, Brian James O'Sullivan, Ros Watt, Benny Young

Directed by Max Webster; Capture directed by Tim Van Someren.

For just over 400 years, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, The Scottish Play, has been regularly performed. And, there have been several film versions including those by Orson Welles, Roman Polanski, filmed stage versions with Kenneth Branagh, Ralph Fiennes, and the basic plot being used for several gangster films like Joe Macbeth and Geoffrey Wright’s version updated to Melbourne.

In the last decade there have been Justin Kurzel’s version with Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard as well as Joel Coen’s version with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand.

But, here is Macbeth with a Scottish accent. And a number of the other characters as well. And it is a striking performance, especially with his accent, by popular film and television star, David Tennant. At the outset, he makes Macbeth’s character his own and doesn’t let go. Sometimes, Lady Macbeth seems to dominate in interpretations. However, here she is played by Cush Jumbo, strongly intense but never dominating Macbeth himself.

The rest of the cast is an ensemble, often standing in a row at the back of the stage, then emerging and taking on quite a range of characters. And there is a racial mix in the cast as well as two actresses taking on male characters, especially Ross and Malcolm. And amongst the ensemble are musicians playing on stage.

And, considering the stage, it is a white square, surrounded on three sides by the audience (wearing headphones so that they hear the Shakespearean language well and extraneous sounds are excluded). At times there can be some props carried on stage including the weapons. And, at the end, behind the stage there is a colourful nature panorama. The minimalist staging of the play works particularly well, making demands on the imagination of the audience.

But, one might say the triumph of this version is the decision to use close-ups throughout the film, bringing the audience so close to Macbeth himself, to Lady Macbeth in her scheming as well as in her guilty madness, to all the characters. But, best of all is the decision to have Macbeth, David Tennant, frequently in close-up, looking and speaking straight into camera, intense, confiding in us the audience, trying to make us complicit in his decisions, in his regrets, in his ruthlessness, in his ultimate disillusionment.

This certainly makes this version of Macbeth worth seeing, brief, running under two hours, on the move, intense for performers and for the audience.

This version has another special surprise. Often the Porter sequence is omitted.

It is intended are some comic atmosphere/relief before the full tragedy descends on us. In this version, the director has decided to do some stand-up comedy, touches of broad appeal, the comedian as the Porter, Jatinder Singh Randhawa, engaging with the audience, asking about their headphones, joking but eventually moving into the Shakespeare text. Quite a memorable interlude.

The director of the play is Max Webster, significant in the UK his creative work. However, there has to be a credit for the director for the “Capture” of the play for the screen, Tim Van Someren. His use of the close-ups has been praised, and, often, the camera looking straight down on stage and characters, keeping the camera moving for the action, a sense of stillness for the soliloquies and the reflections.

This version of Macbeth reminds us of the richness of Shakespeare’s language and the quotations we remember, the political complexities of the plot, the psychology of the downfall of an ambitious man and his supportive wife – there can be many more versions.