Big Mac

Highly creative at times, this adaptation of Macbeth by pupils from Magdalen College School in Oxford, is unfortunately unable to progress beyond the status of a rather green student performance.

Shrewdly choosing to set the play in Hollywood’s golden age, the play deals with the twin themes of modern ambition and living within an intensely materialistic culture; themes that remain relevant to most contemporary audiences and especially impressionable adolescents.

Up and coming actor Jack Marlin and his ruthless girlfriend Kitty Parker both desire the glamour and fame that Hollywood symbolises. Desperate to achieve the good life, their naive attempt to blackmail Hollywood producer Dan Cassell goes terribly wrong as they inadvertently end up murdering him. The consequent spiral into violence and madness that is the hallmark of Shakespeare's great work is delivered with energy, but lacks depth.

Despite imaginatively reworking the three witches as agents to Marlin, many elements of the performance have not been successfully thought through. Attempting to draw on post-structuralist techniques, the script and stage design refer to the inter-textual nature of theatre; yet this has proved a little ambitious for such a young group. Instead of deconstructing meaning, the performance rambles in its failure to balance the real and imaginative.

Big Mac should be commended in its gutsy endeavour to interpret innovatively one of 39 shows at the Fringe inspired by Shakespeare. In spite of this, though, the group’s bold stab at complexity unfortunately also serves to demonstrate their inexperience.