Smashing Shakespeare: Brave Macbeth
★★★★★ Smashin’
Assembly @ St Andrews Square (Venue 172): Fri 7 – Sun 30 Aug 2026
Review by Rebecca Mahar
Captive Theatre romps into the Bijou tent at St. Andrew’s Square with Smashing Shakespeare: Brave Macbeth, a children’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy that’s heavy on charm and cheek and entirely without condescension.
Cutting Shakespeare for performance is always a tricky business, but trying to pack the entire story into one hour, make it intelligible and fun for little ones, and make it a musical? It’s a tall order, but Captivate comes through, stripping Shakespeare’s play back to the barest of bones, most essential characters, and highlights of plot points.
Jorgey Scott-Learmonth, Lucy Pedersen and Ollie Heimann. Pic Malik Tajamul.
Under the direction of Scott Coltman, Sally Lyall’s script and Colum Findlay’s music manage to tie it all together into something cohesive, hilarious, and appreciable by young and old alike.
The show opens with the three witches (Jorgey Scott-Learmonth, Lucy Pedersen, Ollie Heimann) spookily explaining that this is the story of Macbeth from Shakespeare, before breaking into the first song of the show, which cleverly weaves in lines from the original play (a feature that continues throughout in both song and speech).
A montage explaining what’s happened before the show actually starts introduces Macbeth himself (Scott Binnie), along with Banquo (Kennedy Thomson, labubu swinging from one hip), before the witches declare the prophesy that Macbeth will be king, and Banquo shall sire a line of kings, setting up the dominoes of tragedy.
a septet of high-energy chaos
Brave Macbeth doesn’t shy away from the fact that this is a story filled with blood and death, instead wrapping it up in catchy tunes, funsize clearly pretend swords, and dramatic squeals of agony followed by the “dead” bodies crawling offstage while muttering to each other. For all the murder it retains, it’s not remotely scary— perfect for getting your wean interested in Shakespeare, whether they’re bloodthirsty or no.
A scene from Brave Macbeth. Pic Malik Tajamul.
The company of Brave Macbeth are a septet of high-energy chaos, with Scott-Learmonth, Thomson, Pederson, and Heimann filling all the parts except Macbeth, Lady Macbeth (Hannah Buyers), and Fleance (Maria Woodside). These multi-rolers flit rapidly from witches to murderers and other supernumerary characters, as well as being a diegetic back-up chorus to the Macbeths, at one point dividing into devils (Lady M’s) and angels (Macbeth’s side) as the wannabe queen tries to convince her husband to kill the king (“You gotta do it!/”I cannae do it!”).
Buyers is a consistently ambitious Lady M, firmly cast as the villain (but hey, they only have an hour to work with), and always shutting down her husband’s attempts to soliloquise while trying to get him to get a move on with the murdering. Macbeth finally gets his chance to wax poetic after Lady M’s untimely demise, and Binnie shines in his solo number My Soliloquies, which also sneakily explains what a soliloquy is.
As Shakespeare adaptations go, Brave Macbeth is a smash. It’s targeted to children, but thoroughly enjoyable for adults as well. It’s hard to imagine a better introduction to Shakespeare for weans, and a whole series of shows in the style of this one would doubtless be a hit.
Running time: One hour (no interval).
Assembly @ St Andrews Square (Bijou), St Andrew Square EH2 2AF (Venue 172).
Friday 7 – Sunday 30 August 2026.
Daily (not 12, 13, 17-20, 25-27): 10.45am.
Tickets and details: Book here.
Captivate website: www.captivatetheatre.com/
Facebook: @captivatetheatre
Instagram: @captivatetheatre
TikTok: @captivate_theatre
Hannah Buyers as Lady Macbeth with the cast of Brave Macbeth. Pic Malik Tajamul.
ENDS
