Macbeth has seized the Scottish throne and is bumping off nobles left, right and centre. Macduff, his countryman, is in England visiting the rightful king when he learns that his own family has been murdered. Deranged with grief, he cries out for his "pretty ones". Somewhere in the Barbican Pit audience, sniffing starts. A nose is blown. A bad-tempered critic feels a pricking at his eyes.
There are some fine performances in this production, not least from Jonathan Nibbs as the bereft and vengeful Macduff. Gyuri Sarossy is splendid as the swivel-eyed Macbeth, sick and sour with his own corruption; Zoë Aldrich is doubly chilling as Lady M and one of the "weird sisters", not so much embracing evil as straddling it and giving it the ride of its life. There's even that rarest of theatrical animals - a genuinely comic drunk, in the form of Roland Oliver's Porter, gasbagging on about brewer's droop as Duncan lies slaughtered in his bed.
Yet it never entirely gels. Director Andrew Hilton and his Bristol-based company, Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory, bring a real freshness to the more intimate scenes, but the moment bodies crowd the stage, the spell is broken. Too much rushing about, sword-clutching and generic alarum; too little feeling or intelligence. If you weren't familiar with the text (and what director doesn't dream of seducing a virgin or two?) you might find it impossible to follow the politicking or the military developments. There are even a couple of fluffed lines.
The sparse set makes much use of trap doors, flipped open in the stage to suggest the witches' cauldron or a larger body of water. Something's not quite right when you catch yourself worrying that one of the actors might fall in.
· Until October 23. Box office: 020-7638 8891.
