MACBETH

Granada/Channel 4 co-production

Michael Bogdanov's film of Macbeth started life as five 16 minute segments for schools television. The discipline of working within such tight time confines and the restrictions imposed by an underage target audience have produced a lean, mean product in which Greta Scacchi - for once - does not take off her clothes. Shot in and around Manchester, settings for the 83 minute condensation range from the wreckage- and body-strew moors, thick with M16-toting thanes, to the seedy warehouses which pass for nobles' castles in this bleak post-apocalyptic world. This is Macbeth dragged enthusiastically out of its historical setting and pounded into a present-day neverwhen. The only kilt in sight swirls around the worthily hairy ankles of Celtic bore Macduff (Lorcan Cranitch), the only character in the piece who seems to care one jot about Scotland. The others - smooth Etonian Malcolm (Jack Davenport), slick self-advancer Banquo (Michael Maloney) and tortured soul Macbeth (Sean Pertwee) - have their eye solely on the prospect of self-aggrandisement.

Bogdanov's production shows - once again - what a fantastic medium film is for delivering Shakespeare; quite possibly the finest and most comprehensible medium for a contemporary audience. Bogdanov utilises the filmmaker's ability to direct focus to draw the viewer's attention to the political messages of the play, centring on Macbeth's reaction to Duncan's designation of Malcolm as his heir just at Macbeth's moment of utmost triumph and popularity. Similarly, the camera sticks like glue to a sagging, battered Macduff as Malcolm delivers his fine words about his newly-commencing reign, lending the final speech a "thanks for doing the dirty work, old boy, but we'll take it from here" air. Bogdanov has little respect or admiration for the House of Duncan.

Macbeth's monologues are delivered as internal discourses, voiced over Sean Pertwee's hard-thinking features. The only problem with this is that an excess of sibilance in the voice-over recording, coupled with a family resemblance which grows with the years, means that Macbeth's inner voice sounds progressively more and more like Wurzel Gummidge. However, both Pertwee and Greta Scacchi (Lady M) rise to the challenge of this high action cut-down, giving energy-infused performances which crackle with passion and madness. This is a couple on the up: young, sexy and ambitious. It is only when the advancement to which they feel entitled is stymied by Duncan's nepotism that they become dangerous, as Macbeth tumbles from noble guerrilla warlord to drugs baron.

Unlike Baz Luhrman's Californian Romeo + Juliet, the contemporisation lacks a consistent thread. Where the former features a nigh-fanatical devotion to total consistency within its own fictional universe, Macbeth is a weird concoction of mix-and-match contemporary costumes and locations which blends Richard Locraine's recent Richard III with Mad Max. The styling is too diverse, the use of sunglasses too ubiquitous, and blasted post-industrial urban chic triumphs over consistency.

Nevertheless, the film may well succeed in its aim of bringing Macbeth to an audience who would be turned off by the bleak studio sets, clanking armour and declaimed verse which has characterised television presentations in the past. The slanting camera angles, grainy Nineties feel and cast littered with well-known names and faces could well draw in an audience more familiar with dramas such as Prime Suspect than with Shakespeare. With a mass-market broadcast on Channel 4 scheduled for Christmas, it should at least make an interesting change from watching reruns of The Snowman and Die Hard.

TOBY O'CONNOR MORSE