Green-screen Macbeth readies for streaming
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Michelle Clancy
| 17 March 2018

Entirely shot on green screen, Shakespeare’s Macbeth has been reinvented by director Kit Monkman in a fresh film adaptation.


Starring Mark Rowley, (The Last Kingdom, Luther) the film will be available for digital download from 23 April. The release date marks the anniversary of both the day Shakespeare is thought to have been born and died.

Monkman’s adaptation bridges the gap between theatre and film to create a wholly new type of imaginative space. The adaptation puts the audience’s engagement with the story centre stage, amplifying the theatrical context of the original and creating cinematic vistas, whilst maintaining the language and themes of Shakespeare’s original play.

“Brilliant and exhilarating,” said Peter Holland, chair of the International Shakespeare Association. “Kit Monkman’s Macbeth is the most innovative rethinking of what it means to put Shakespeare on film for decades... a forceful reimagining of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy.”

Using background matte painting and computer modelling to generate the world in which the action plays out, the green screen allowed Monkman to create his vision of a multi-tiered globe in which the characters play out their various fates.

“Macbeth is a play that’s fascinated by interiority and imagination and Shakespeare’s storytelling is far from naturalistic so this seemed like an ideal opportunity to explore a more abstract theatrical approach to the screen,” said Monkman.

Macbeth will be available to stream via iTunes, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Sky Store and Vubiquity.