David Tennant as Macbeth - Donmar Warehouse / Harold Pinter

Managed to get through the queue after joining it 15mins late, started around 7000ish in the queue and managed to snag one of the cheaper tickets for a matinee. Now to see if I can arrange comfier headphones!

I got in shortly after 12 and got £35 in the upper circle. 

Yep, very easy to get tickets for. Managed to get a £25 one for a Monday in November, so I guess that's a short trip to London for me.

I was able to get tickets for this pre sale last week for this using my £75 memberhip I got last year for the Donmar. But I messed it up big time. I went in at 10am last Wedneday and was just 15 in line for tickets and sudenly I was in. But I had to rejester and in the time it took to type my name and address etc and make a password I was timed out. I had forgotten to click remember me and had to submit everything again. Then I forgot to click both the seats at the ame time and pay for them and found I was just paying for one. By this point I was tairing my hair out. And in all this confusion I hadn't shifted the seating plan to December the 9th and had just left it on October. Then I found  at at the pay bit instead of two tickets sitting there to get payed for it was three two the 9th of December one for the 9th of October.  I wanted the 9th of December as it's my biirthday  So I saw you could remove them So removed one and payed for my two tickets. Only to find I thought they were now both the 9th of October. My dad was away and I phoned him to say I had messed up and it was the 9th of October the tickets were for. No problem we'll just go then. So I felt much better as at least I was still going to see this.

Then last Saturday morning my dad who I'm going with to see this with decided to book our hotel, flight to London and carpark at airport. All was booked and I asked if he'd print out my tickets for me as back up incase something went wrong with my phone like I always do. And after printing both out he looked at them and said oh no one is October the 9th and one is December the 9th. I had removed the wrong ticket when paying. I was heart brocken this now ment I was going to see this on my own and I would have to see if I could re sell my ticket for December as hotel etc in London was now booked for 9th of October. My dad sent an E mail to the ticket office telling them of my mistake. On Tuesday I got a reply. I could get a ticket in the row behond the one for the 9th of October or two together in the row in front but not in the middle like my original one but at the side. After all that all I had to do was let them know what seats I wanted and pay the difference. We took the two together and all we had to do was pay the difference by buying a theater voutcherfor the difference from them and E mail the code to them. Thursday morning it was all sorted and they sent the tickets to download to me. I must say the prize for the best customer services ever goes to The Harold Pinter theater as they went above and beyond to see I got two tickets for the 9th of October. I'm so pleased my mistake is all sorted now thanks to their very kind help.

I wouldn't be surprised if they added another week.

Probably. It was just after the Covid lark i think. 

I saw this MacBeth during the Donmar run, and have been thinking about some of the issues other people commented about back then, both good and bad. Wanted to add some thoughts before the transfer run starts, and was reminded by the interval discussion.

I saw it twice at the Donmar - side gallery and central standing. Central was a lot better, that will work with a larger room.

The first time I saw it at the Donmar I loyally used the headphones in part one. I then had them partly off for part two because I missed the experience of hearing voices in the room, and it felt distancing rather than immersive.

The second time I went specifically to see the play without using headphones at all. Put them on my head for show, but not on my ears. I would say there were some small parts of the play you could not hear without the headphones. Mostly those few bits were either voice overs to set the scene, or dialogue behind the glass divide behind the stage. From the actual stage, I could hear almost everything, just a handful of whispers I could not. The headphones added more in part one, where the ability to hear whispered thoughts adds a creepy intimacy. In part two, it was also used to give a second POV to the main stage, but that could also work with well placed speakers. It might be poor memory on my part, but I do think the binaural aspect was slightly adapted to where in the room you were seated, the visuals and sounds felt in synch. Can’t really see how that will work at the Harold Pinter.

I got the point of the headphones used at the Donmar. They did work as intended to a very high degree. I enjoyed this MacBeth, and gave it five stars with no hesitation. I would also - no contest - have preferred a version with no headphones. The Donmar would have been perfect for a show with secret whispers, and with this cast anything extra was just that, extra and superfluous.

The Porter thing … I don’t mind a Shakespeare play breaking the barrier per ce, the fool often will address the audience. I suppose the MacBeth porter script IS one big knock-knock joke, and while this interlude was very annoying, I’d accept that he is annoying because that’s his job, as written. I do hope it will be changed for the transfer, though, and that we get an interval or different break.

This play does need a little break and a breather, while wardrobe does their job, and a different option would have been an interval. If there had been one, I’m pretty sure the audience would have talked about same theme mocking the production, and maybe less kind. With the porter the audience were in on the joke rather than making it themselves. Having the play mock itself is probably more successful, but If I could have chosen, I would have had the musicians do a 3 minute piece instead of the porter, though.

The cast was lovely. The scenography and costumes - very effective. DM was very, very good. I do like this play a lot in all kinds of variations, and this is my favourite so far. I’m both looking forward to and dreading the transfer version, because of the headphones. It would work well as a TV version, if a filmed version from the Donmar is made available.

Used the membership to have a peak, I didn't see this at the DW. Some dates have no availability, most have a small selection of stalls seats for £250, the extremely occasional £125 edge of the row seat, and you can find one or two upper section £25 tickets in what I would call the moderate to severely restricted category (half a stage missing, two safety rails, back of the circle type combinations). Going to give this one a miss, I reckon. But if you've got money to burn then have a go.

£250.00 is of course ridiculous and insulting and, I would have thought, against everything half the people involved in the production believe in (I assume that many of them want to make theatre more accessible and more appealing to young people and to people who don't have hundreds of pounds to spend on one evening's entertainment. It's not just the cost of the evening but the impression that is given that theatre is only for a tiny minority of the wealthy that galls.

This is the West End transfer and so costs are higher. Anyone who was desperate to see it at lower prices would have seen it at the Donmar.


Another factor is the Donmar no longer has ACE funding so they've got to be a bit more commercially driven and any profits they do make from the West End transfer of Macbeth will be going back to the Donmar.