Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: Audio Drama, bbc, david tennant, doctor who, macbeth, russell t davies, shakespeare

Macbeth: Doctor Who Star David Tennant Goes Dark for Scottish Play

David Tennant, arguably the most popular Doctor Who of this generation, plays Macbeth in BBC Radio 4's production. It was kind of inevitable, really. For every classically-trained actor, Shakespeare is the pinnacle, the top of a mountain to claim. A tragedy of a man driven by ambition to commit murder, then finds his life empty as he fights to avoid the comeuppance that is his fate, the Scottish Play is clearly a way to check something off of Tennant's bucket list.

Macbeth is a general who meets a trio of creepy witches who tell him he's going to be king, an ambition he never dared consider before. Their prophecy prompts his wife to persuade him to murder the king, who was his friend, and steal the throne. But as Macbeth achieves this ultimate ambition, he's driven to commit more murders to keep his prize, and both he and his wife are driven to madness by guilt and paranoia, until Macbeth becomes an empty vessel desperately fighting the fate that's now coming for him.

Tennant plays Macbeth as a man who slowly becomes a serial killer. It's the most intimate Macbeth for a generation since he plays Macbeth's monologues as inner dialogue to show his descent into madness. An audio-only production makes Shakespeare's play feel surprisingly apt. Macbeth's monologues become his inner voice, whispered to himself and us, which emphasizes his alienation and encroaching madness. Unlike other productions, you feel like you're inside Macbeth's head, his secret passenger following him through every horrible deed he commits that drives him closer to his fate.

If you're wondering how we're going to fit Doctor Who into this, here it is: Tennant previously played a version of Macbeth in his final two Doctor Who specials that were written by Russell T. Davies: the Doctor declaring he was "Time Lord Victorious" only to be first undone by Captain Brooke (Lindsay Duncan) killing herself to restore the timeline and defeat him, the Ood predicting his death with "he will knock four times". And in the final moments where the Doctor thinks he's won, only to be undone by Wilf (Bernard Cribbins) knocking four times while asking to be saved… which the Doctor can't not do. It reverses Macbeth selfishly trying to stay alive by having the Doctor sacrifice himself to save a life. Davies knew that he could add to the poignance of the Tenth Doctor's end by drawing on those archetypal moments from Macbeth.

You could say Macbeth is one of the most perfect screenplays ever written, long before screenplays came along. It's perfectly paced and perfectly structured, its themes of murder, guilt, fate, and retribution are perfectly integrated. Uncut it's only two hours, a perfect 3-act structure for movies. It's possibly the first noir thriller, so rich it can be riffed on endlessly, a morality tale still relevant. Writers like Davies and many others can draw from it again and again, but you can only experience its power from the source, and this audio production is the clearest version in ages.

Macbeth starring Tennant is streaming on the BBC, both Part 1 and Part 2.

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