from ATG’s Magazine / by Imogen Sarre & Jasper Rees
Roughly how old are the Macbeths?
We know they have had at least one child, presumed dead, but beyond that Shakespeare offers no further clue. Such is the trajectory of their moral degradation that audiences, and indeed casting directors, tend not to think of the Thane of Glamis and his wife as still having the bloom of youth on their cheeks. Thus the lead role can happily be taken on by someone in his 60s, as happened with Patrick Stewart when the play was most recently revived in the West End.
But now the Hollywood star James McAvoy brings the zip and springiness of someone known mainly for playing callow young men in the likes of The Last King of Scotland, Atonement and The Last Station. He turns 34 during his run in the role at the Trafalgar Studios, and the latest King of Scotland is joined in matrimony to Claire Foy, who turns 29 in April but looks young enough to have twice played teenagers in 2012: at the Royal Court in Mike Bartlett’s Love Love Love and in the BBC drama White Heat.
Continue reading Meet the Macbeths (James McAvoy & Claire Foy)