ONE of the most spectacular, and difficult to stage, moments from Shakespeare’s Macbeth is to bring the forest of Birnam Wood to Dunsinane castle, and you might think it would be too big an ask in the intimate confines of Bedminster’s Tobacco Factory Theatre, with a cast of only ten actors. Think again.

By blending clever costume design, atmospheric soundscapes, martial arts, choreography and insistent rhythms, director Heidi Vaughan and designer Edwina Bridgeman and the entire cast have created a moving forest of mythic creatures, multi-tasking as witches, trees and general disruptors – social mediums, perhaps – who fuel the fears and ambitions in this most dramatic play.

Famously unlucky (it’s even referred to as The Scottish Play rather than by name to avoid the “curse”), Macbeth is also known for the vast number of everyday expressions that come from its lines. Happily for the audience, this Shakespearean production at the Tobacco Factory follows in the hallowed footsteps of Andrew Hilton’s Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory company, established in 2000. Hilton was a stickler for giving the words their proper weight, telling the stories clearly and making archaic language totally accessible to new audiences. This new company, run by Tobacco Factory Theatres itself, adds yet another advantage. In many productions, I have never seen Macbeth’s own journey more convincingly or clearly depicted, and that is in large part due to Stu McLoughlin. He’s best known as half of Living Spit, but his pedigree goes back much further, through Kneehigh, the National Theatre and, memorably, as a sidewalking crab at Lyme Regis for Shanty Theatre. It was clear from the audience that many people had come to see this popular, and super-versatile, actor in an unaccustomedly serious role.

Heidi Vaughan worked with the largely Bristol-based cast to create not only the terror and duplicity, but the humanity of the story, and it is one that seems particularly relevant in these days of war, political plotting and vaulting ambition, when one man listens to the “prophesies” de nos jours, and becomes convinced of his own invincibility.

The cast includes veteran Maggie Tagney in the three roles of King Duncan, the lame porter and the doctor administering to the increasingly haunted Lady Macbeth, played by Kneehigh and Wise Children regular Patrycja Kujawska. Saikat Ahamed is Banquo, with Alice Barclay as Ross, Guy Hughes as Macduff and Adam Mirsky as Malcolm. Every character visibly grew in stature and understanding as the plot thickened, and the entire audience was swept into the action.

With just the right amount of music to underline the action, and a rapidly-mounting sense of fear and dread, we watched as an ordinary man was transformed into a despotic monster, but one whose ambition was outside his own control. It is a compelling reading of the play, and one that does not depend on a sexual chemistry between the new king and his murderous queen. She likes to think of herself as a monster, but doesn’t have the stomach for what that really means.

This extraordinarily compelling production is on until 28th March.

Photographs by Craig Fuller