With fog swirling outside and waves lapping at its base, Portsmouth’s medieval Square Tower was the ideal setting for this gory tale of ambition and retribution, staged ‘in the round ‘ by this committed and talented company.

With no scenery and few props, this surely is the way to stage Shakespeare, focusing on the story and the verse. In this the play was well-served by all the players in a production without interval, briskly-paced from the witches’ gruesome coven at the outset to the brutal slaying of Macbeth at the end.

To an exciting abstract soundtrack, Rob Bartlett’s Macbeth was all incredulity and indecision, egged on by the machinations of Karen Gregory-Reader’s determined Lady M. Andy Thomas was a fine Banquo (and a most credible ghost) while Daniel Hill (Malcolm) and Danny Carter (Macduff) shared perhaps the evening’s best scene in which the latter learns of his family’s tragic slaughter.