Macbeth (1965)

Another take on the 1960 version, with a different production team and some of the same cast.

Date of release
1965-09-22
TMDB
7.0 / 10 (1)
Runtime
1h 30m
Director
Alan Burke

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Based on: Macbeth

"Macbeth" is a 1965 Australian television play, an episode of Wednesday Theatre. It is an adaptation of the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare and aired on 22 September 1965 in Sydney and Melbourne, and on 27 October 1965 in Brisbane. The play had previously been filmed by ABC in 1960 with Keith Goodlet in the title role.

Production

The production was directed by Alan Burke who said, "I always approach Shakespeare with reverence, but not with awe. Someone once said, 'A producer should read every new play as if it were Shakespeare, and Shakespeare as if it were a new play.' I heartily agree with this... The main value of the play is inside the minds of its characters. TV, with its revealing close-ups, is the ideal medium with which to demonstrate this."

It was set in the year the play was written, around 1600, rather than when Shakespeare originally set it, around 1100. This meant the characters wore traditional tartans. "Our aim was authenticity," said Burke. "Every detail was thoroughly researched - the tartans, costumes and swords.

The final battle was shot in Mount Macedon over two days, involving a cast and crew of 83 in all. Wardrobe manager Keith Clarke said "the kilts had to be carefully planned and supervised; otherwise with 30 men fighting enthusiastically we could have ended up with a few nasty accidents."

The bulk of filming was done at the ABC studios in Ripponlea, Melbourne.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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