Source: Daily Telegraph
Charles Spencer
30 November 2002
Macbeth
There have been some surprisingly hostile reviews of Edward Hall's
exciting, fast-paced production, but it strikes me as a great
popular success that deserves a wide audience. Sean Bean is every
inch the soldier as a Northern-accented Macbeth, and adds a thrilling
stage presence to the role. It's true that he could usefully turn
up the poetic intensity in the soliloquies, but he fascinatingly
suggests Macbeth's innate decency before evil enters his life.
Samantha Bond is in sensational form as his wife, a sexually predatory
siren urging him to acts whose consequences she totally fails
to understand. Exciting, imaginatively designed and full of bright
ideas, this is one of the most gripping Macbeths I have seen.