Devil You Known’s production gets a lot right – to the extent that I feel that I’m finally appreciating Macbeth after years of writing it off as a bit of an upmarket gothic horror schlockfest with too many characters with similar names and motives and too much killing. That’s due to the clarity of the storytelling led by director Paul Tomlinson and acting that avoids histrionics to concentrate on the words, spoken with great sympathy for the rhythm of blank verse. These men and women may act like brutal savages but they sound like kings – an important lesson about how power can make itself manifest in many forms and why we should always be wary of its excess.
Paul Tomlinson was Director of Productions at the new Queen’s Theatre in Hornchurch for 10 years from 1974 to 1984. He is a graduate of the University of Cape Town (B.A.Teacher’s Diploma in Speech and Drama) He started as an actor in productions at the Strand Theatre (West End) the Mermaid and the Arts. Paul was in Sally Miles’ Margate Stage Company for 18 months and in regional theatre in Newcastle, St. Andrews and Salisbury.
Brilliantly captures the poetic yearning of a simple community …. Eleven characters are finely drawn, softly blending into a bolder portrait of nostalgia tinged with disappointment, a future corrupted by ..
