Return To The Forbidden Planet

From a robot on wheels to a green tentacled monster, this is Shakespeare as you’ve never seen it before.

‘The Tempest’, thought by many to have been Shakespeare’s final play, has been given a quirky twist with a steam punk theme to form Macclesfield Majestic’s take on ‘Return To The Forbidden Planet’ - its versatile and talented cast are well up to task of making the audience smile with quips and tap their feet along to this rock’n’roll hit parade score.

With just the one static stage set throughout, on board the spaceship, the cast work around it effortlessly. The steam punk inspiration gives this production a bold stamp of originality although it does oppose Carlton’s vision for his creation somewhat. The theme naturally continued through to the wardrobe which added to the strong vision and contributed to the overall presentation making this a visually striking production. If we’re talking about personal taste, I was glad to walk into something other than an animated star trek inspired design with outfits looking like they’ve been made from tin foil (what you’d expect!) - even if this vision didn’t quite work with the piece, it was well structured, looked terrific nonetheless and certainly didn’t give the impression of a cheap or lazy option. Where it didn’t work for me was how it made the music the sore thumb of the evening with electronic and lazor inspired sounds contradicting the ‘look’ that’s been created – somehow the vision needed to continue through to what we heard to sound more industrial to complement the design.

The cast ‘got it’, each and every one of them rolled with it, giving and believing in the show one hundred percent. Luke Clayton as Cookie was quite brilliant and stupefies with all the trimmings and tricks he has to throw at it. Chris Simmons gives us a melodramatic Prospero, domineering the stage with a larger than life sense of humour and exuberance.

Now, none of this is his fault but Peter Monroe had unfortunately been given an effect on his microphone to make him sound ‘robot-like’ which caused more of a hindrance than an enhancement to his act, preventing me from understanding at least fifty percent of his dialogue. The effect picked up other players voices which subsequently turned them into robots whenever they were near him and often, the effect didn’t kick in until half way through his lines – a good idea in principle but one that needed to be scrapped given the snags.

I’m never shy in admitting that I find Shakespearean verse overtaxing and rather strenuous at times, however, the cast translated and communicated it justifiably. Often with inexperienced Shakespearean actors his language can convey as nothing more than one word after another without much substance or understanding but this troupe managed to execute it to an endurable level.    

This show is famed for its actor/muso ability (where the cast are also the musicians), it may come as no shock that this idea is often ditched when tackled by amateur companies, however, I appreciated the nod to this identity when Emily Knutton as Miranda played the Saxophone during her parents duet in Act II, something which may have seemed a tad curious, odd or unexpected to those unfamiliar with the show, but even so, it was a valued acknowledgement to the original prototype of the musical and at such a perfect and evocative moment too.

Carolyn Farrish-Mayer excelled as the Science Officer/Gloria offering her skill set as a dancer to portray her role. ‘Return To The Forbidden Planet’ lends itself well for a cast to showcase their strengths as performers, the show can quite easily be tailored to suit the skillset of its cast which is probably the element which most attracts me to the production.

Congratulations Macclesfield MTG, I can confess that this was a show I wasn’t overly looking forward to but left the theatre feeling fully satisfied and entertained. 

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