"Hard as the hobs of Halifax," my grandma used to say. I have no idea what she meant, but if you catch Northern Broadsides at work in its Pennine heartland you begin to get the picture. Barrie Rutter's company is as hard as the hobs of Halifax. Possibly even harder.
So it comes as a surprise that the main scenic element of their latest production should be a livid, orange shag-pile rug, more suited to a 1970s swinger's pad than a barbaric Highland fiefdom. Has the company gone soft? Certainly there will be little scope for its trademark clog-dancing on that.
One need not worry, however. Rutter's bludgeoning, two-hour production has a hard, flat interpretation and even harder, flatter vowels. "Now treason 'as dun its wusst" bellows Andrew Vincent's pugilistic Macbeth, like a provincial butcher determined to smash a rival sausage cartel. Helen Sheals matches him as a shrewish, insinuating Lady Macbeth. Just when you've almost given up hope, the witches roll back the rug and do a spot of clogging after all.
This isn't to suggest that the production is without subtlety, nor, indeed, a controversial approach to editing. Rutter emphasises the supernatural side by restoring the spuriously authored Hecate scenes, which is rare, and cutting the slaughter of Macduff's family, which is surely unprecedented. Removing this scene seems an act of butchery in itself, yet it has a remarkable pay-off, for the news is as much of a shock to Macduff as it is to us. The stunned, incomprehending reaction of Richard Standing's Macduff was an inspired piece of acting.
The inclusion of the Hecate scenes is explicable in that Rutter takes this enjoyable cameo himself and, like the diabolical witch-master he portrays, he runs the show. Fortified by Conrad Nelson's visceral percussion, the chanted witches' sequences are a tour de force. Arrayed in vivid, terracotta weeds, these denizens of the night blend in well with the rug, occasionally plunging into its feathery pile so as to disappear completely. Rough magic, to be sure, but of the kind Northern Broadsides do best of all.
· Ends tonight. Box office: 01422 255266. Then tours to Wellingborough, Skipton and across Britain until June 1.
