Star rating: ***
Shakespeare's moody, broody, big, bad and potentially dangerous yarn about power, corruption, consequence, action and murder in high places isn't an obvious candidate for the summertime strawberries and champagne outdoor circuit.
Then again, Macbeth is one of the few plays that would actually benefit from this country's magnificently contrary inclement climate.
Normally the annual Bard in the Botanics season is guaranteed at least a thunder crack or two, if not a torrential downpour, both of which would lend accidental drama to Jennifer Dick's production.
As it is, the elements are disappointingly tranquil as the audience are promenaded between three close-together sites in a two-hour, interval-free version.
Not that there aren't attempts at fire and brimstone here, from the opening triangle of hooded Witches who first throw down the gauntlet to the eponymous conquering hero and some real attempts at breaking up the landscape into some multi-dimensional stage pictures.
That it doesn't entirely come off is partly down to the inevitable upstaging by the immediate environment, here broken up by a bamboo design concept that extends to the king and queen's crowns. When actors are strong enough to rise above all this, though, there are some terrific moments, not least of which are the all too brief punctuations by Scots laments.
Kenny Blyth makes a quietly menacing Seyton and Paul Cunningham an earthily realised Macbeth. It's left to Beth Marshall as Lady Macbeth, however, to pretty much act everyone out of the park. Only at the end, though, does any real thesis come into play as a left-behind Macduff lays down in the dirt, just as defeated as his nemesis. Kingship, it seems, comes with the highest of prices.
