David Tennant and Cush Jumbo Star in a New Macbeth

Front Row at the Movies by Shirrel Rhoades

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I watch a lot of British TV – Britbox, Acorn, BBC. Recently, I binged on “Broadchurch,” with David Tennant portraying a put-upon policeman trying to solve a murder. And later I watched Harlan Coben’s “Stay Close,” with Cush Jumbo playing a former stripper suspected of murder.

So, as you can imagine, it caught my attention when Tennant and Jumbo teamed up to co-star in a new production of William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” – the tragedy about an ambitious king and power-hungry queen of Scotland. Seizing power, the bloodbath leads to insanity and their ultimate demise.

Although first performed around 1606, “The Tragedie of Macbeth” was first published in “Mr. William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies,” known to scholars as the Folio of 1623.

Shakespeare based his play on “Holinshed’s Chronicles” (1587), a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland — although the play differs greatly from the actual historical events.

It is Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy.

A stage production of “Macbeth,” starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo is currently playing to sold out houses in London’s West End. The critically acclaimed production, directed by Max Webster, was filmed live during its run at the Donmar Warehouse in London and is being screened in cinemas across the UK, US, Australia and selected international territories starting February 5.

That includes Key West’s Tropic Cinema.

David Tennant is perhaps best known for the popular TV and podcast sci-fi series “Doctor Who.” But he’s applied his thespian skills before to Shakespeare – “Hamlet,” “Much Ado About Nothing,” “Royal Shakespeare Company: Richard III.” So, he was comfortable treading the Bard’s boards.

IMDb confirms that Tennant is “widely considered as one of the greatest stage and screen actors of his generation both in his native Scotland and internationally … At four years old, he decided to become an actor, inspired by his love of the TV show “Doctor Who” (1963).

In 2005, his childhood dream came true, when he was cast to play the role of the Doctor in “Doctor Who” (2005) alongside Billie Piper. The role led to him being voted “Sexiest Man in the Universe” by readers of The Pink Paper.

British actress Cush Jumbo is known for her performance as Josephine Baker in the one-woman show “Josephine and I” in London’s West End (2013). You also may recognize her from the American TV series, “The Good Wife.”

No stranger to Shakespeare, she won the Critics’ Circle Theatre Award for her performance as the title role in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” at the Young Vic Theatre in London (2022).

As for this cinematic release of Tennant and Jumbo’s play, we will simply quote Shakespeare: “All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!”

Email Shirrel: srhoades@aol.com

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