Director and lead actor Ferdy Roberts tells Katherine MacAlister why theatre company Filter is not afraid to delve into the dark side of the Bard

I think it’s a bit like watching an episode of Breaking Bad,” Ferdy Roberts tells me when talking about his production of Macbeth, “because instead of presenting Macbeth as a sword-wielding tyrant with a maniac of a wife, we look at them as a normal couple who took a very wrong turn. We approach it in a psychological way.”

Peeling back our preconceptions is one of the things that has made Filter so successful, its productions lauded, its interpretations mesmerising, its fan base ever-growing, its appeal to non-theatre-goers massive.

Its calling card however, is still the matching of music and theatre, the collaborative process of stripping it back to the bare sounds and emotions, which was so appealing to The National: “It works really well in Macbeth because it’s a very noisy play, all that blood and the birds, the voices inside his head, the washing of hands and knocking at gates.

“So while this is a bit of a curveball for us, fundamentally we want to tell the narrative as clearly as possible. So there is no design or concept, and it’s not set in any particular period or time, like war-torn Syria. We don’t want to be irreverent for the sake of it. But in the original spirit of Shakespeare it is very dark. We are not afraid. Staging Macbeth was a risk Filter was willing to take.”

Still, the Scottish play is a departure from the “lighter” Shakespearean works tackled more recently, namely Twelfth Night and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “It’s totally different to what people will expect – I should think the audience will find it quite moving.”

As Ferdy’s wife Poppy is playing Lady Macbeth to his Macbeth it must also be an emotionally draining experience? “It’s heart-breaking actually because I feel so sorry for them. It’s such a waste of life – their lives and everybody else’s. That's the tragedy – the different path their lives could have taken. It’s relentless. Severed heads, blood and guts aside, being childless and ambitious is what ultimately drives them apart.”

And what of Filter’s critics? “Love it or hate it, we expect to provoke a reaction. If the audience leaves and says: ‘That was nice, now shall we go and have a cup of tea?’ then we have failed. We don’t like anything being too neat or tight.”

And although Ferdy would rather be seen as experimental than boring, fighting against an ‘avant garde’ label is the theatre company’s biggest problem. If anything Ferdy feels that Macbeth is more truthful to the original Shakespeare productions than the many conventional depictions, by being traditional, honest and pared back.

“We are also a similarly itinerant band of players,” he smiles. “We can just turn up, set up and perform. But more than that, we just want to make Macbeth accessible.”

SEE IT
Filter returns to Oxford Playhouse with a captivating new version of Macbeth from Tuesday, February 24, to Saturday, February 28.
Call 01865 305305 or visit oxfordplayhouse.com