Are ye fantastical?

Tags

Alex Kingston, Daniel Ings, Emma Freud, Jimmy Yuill, John Shrapnel, Kenneth Branagh, Nicholas Hytner, Ray Fearon, Rob Ashford, Roger Rees, William Shakespeare

Will nobody rid me of this turbulent Freud?

Last November we went to see a live transmission of the National Theatre production of Timon of Athens. A decent production was all but spoiled by Emma Freud’s patronising introduction, and during the intermission she conducted a dreadfully banal interview with Nicholas Hytner. It was almost enough to make me run screaming from the theatre.

So on Saturday we went to Canterbury to see the filmed production of Macbeth from the Manchester International Festival. Only it turned out that this was done in conjunction with the National Theatre, and bloody Emma Freud popped up again to introduce the play for all us kiddies who’ve never seen a theatre before, and to conduct an interview with the co-director, Rob Ashford, that was enough to make the interview with Hytner seem the height of intellectual sophistication. On top of which, the matiness about Ken this and Ken that was extraordinarily emetic. Only this time, if I had run screaming from the theatre, it would at least have saved me from watching the play.