For many productions of Macbeth, the witches pose a problem. These supernatural beings can easily become unwittingly comedic, or simply fail to convince. Imitating the Dog come up with a striking solution: in their version the witches become the storytellers. With nightmarish clown grins painted on their faces, these three tricksters circle the Macbeths, stepping in and out of all the other roles in the drama. They not only prophesy the future, they manipulate it.
The company has taken a gleefully irreverent approach to the play, chopping up the text, adding in chunks of narration and jamming Shakespearean verse alongside contemporary, expletive-laced speech. The action is relocated from Scotland to Estuary City, a fictional, neon-tinted gangland. The focus is still firmly on the Macbeths, who are reimagined as damaged teenagers who just want to escape the gutter but, no matter what they do, remain trapped within the world of violence projected on the imposing screens behind them.
Andrew Quick and Pete Brooks’ fast-moving production, with its moody lighting and flickering backdrop of vivid images, turns the play into a cinematic thriller. Some added backstory and flashbacks bring new shades to the two protagonists: the horror of their childhoods makes sense of the Macbeths’ desperate attempts to secure their power, after they’ve killed their way to the top of the mafia hierarchy. Benjamin Westerby and Maia Tamrakar are compelling as the scrappy youngsters, depicted less as murderous conspirators than as toughened survivors playing by the rules of the only game they’ve ever known.
However, other elements of this version falter. In particular, the purpose of the witches’ asides to the audience is unclear. They make references that seem to promise some kind of political critique – suggesting Macbeth was originally a piece of royalist propaganda, or describing Estuary City as “the world’s biggest freeport” – but these never go anywhere. Likewise there are tantalising snippets of meta-commentary that ultimately do little other than make explicit what could be left to interpretation. While these weird sisters make effective narrators, not everything needs to be told.
• Macbeth is touring until 6 May
