The five hour show sees Balfron converted into the tower of Macbeth’s castle set in 1970s Eastern Europe in which an audience journey from the car park, where the witches are gathered around a fire, to the intimacy of flats, specially created bars and a banqueting hall, where they feast with the Macbeths before being sent back to sleep until dawn.
Overnight at Balfron Tower in Poplar we told the story of Shakespeare's most brutal tragedy.
The choice of Macbeth is interesting (and considering Balfron is in the borough of Tower Hamlets I think they missed a trick), but I would like to draw attention to articles in national and arts press. One of RIFT’s founders, explains how he was approached by the owners and asked whether he would like use the tower. He said he was interested in how Balfron’s utopian vision of the future, in his words, "became a vision of dystopia instead – in this, I see a similarity to Macbeth himself: the architect wants to be king to make things better and he just ends up making things worse."
The Guardian wrote "at least temporarily, the decaying flats and empty walkways of the high-rise block, will be brought back to life as the stage." But the flats and walkways were not empty as a few residents explain in the comments sections below-the-line. Some short-term residents were moved on from the upper floors by the housing association to make way for it and other long-term residents were still living there.
The five hour show sees Balfron converted into the tower of Macbeth’s castle set in 1970s Eastern Europe in which an audience journey from the car park, where the witches are gathered around a fire, to the intimacy of flats, specially created bars and a banqueting hall, where they feast with the Macbeths before being sent back to sleep until dawn.