Theatre

Macbeth, Citizens Theatre, Glasgow

Neil Cooper

Three stars

When what looks like a bunch of black and grey clad technicians huddle around a bank of home-made electronic instruments at the centre of an otherwise bare stage to make assorted retro-futurist beeps and bloops worthy of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, the penny drops that sound and fury will most likely be at the heart of the Filter company's seventy-five minute truncation of Shakespeare's Scottish play.

As it is, this follow-up to the company's take on the far frothier Twelfth Night, which toured to the Citizens last year, is an oddly restrained affair, in which any eerieness in the collectively created co-production with Bristol's Tobacco Factory comes from Tom Haines'

soundtrack. Here an ever rolling set of witches culled from the cast of seven become the show's house band, ghosts in the machine both driving and manipulating the action as they tune in on it like some diabolical branch of the Stasi or GCHQ. Poppy Miller's quietly driven Lady Macbeth listens in too, seeming to have bugged her would-be king in an unspoken conspiracy fired by surveillance culture.

While Lady M draws cartoon hearts in red marker pen on Duncan's bare torso, Ferdy Roberts' be-denimed Macbeth is privy to the play's inevitable denouement when he's passed a dog-eared copy of Brodie's Notes. He gets to snog both Lady M and Banquo playing Blind Man's Buff at his coronation feast, though when Lady Macbeth fills a line of fun-size goody bags with crisps, Coke and cheesy Wotsits, it more resembles a hipsters tea party. All of which certainly signifies something in this youthful reading of the play, even if its makers don't always know what.