I blogged on Friday about the dismal electronic images of Trevor Nunn's Macbeth, first seen on ITV in early 1979. Nunn's chamber production for the Royal Shakespeare Company, originally seen three years earlier at The Other Place, was produced in the studio by Thames Television. Thirty years on, the colour video images are distressingly poor, but almost everything else about the recording remains vividly strong. Ian McKellen and Judi Dench contribute definitive readings of the central couple, the supporting cast (Bob Peck, John Woodvine, Roger Rees) is vintage RSC, and the whole piece is visually distinctive and dramatically compelling. I have some quibbles, but overall this lives up to its exalted place in the pantheon of small screen Shakespeare.

The production opens with an overhead shot of a white circle edged by black stools. Beyond this, the world too is dark and unformed. I'd not seen the production since its first transmission and, although I recalled that it was visually stripped-back, I was genuinely surprised by quite how austere is the spectacle. 

There are no settings and only a handful of props (daggers, a loving cup for the banquet, swords and shields for the climactic fight). Mist occasionally diffuses light across the empty space, and much is made of the crown being placed first on Duncan's head, then Macbeth's, and finally Malcolm's. But for the most part, this is a production played in close-up.

The colour palette too is immensely restrained; even the blood here is more black than red. Duncan's white hair and cloak stands out, as does Macbeth's golden coronation robe. Otherwise, blacks and near-black tones predominate, throwing into relief the often harshly-lit faces -- and highlighting too the psychological turmoil of the Scottish lord and his wife. 

Much is suggested rather than presented; the vision of the line of kings is entirely in the blindfolded Macbeth's mind; Banquo's ghost is absent from the screen, but shockingly present thanks to McKellen's terrified reactions; there's no attempt to visualise the moving of Birnam Wood. And much too is understated -- the scene with the bloody sergeant has a still, calm sense and the bell summoning Duncan to heaven, or to hell, is no more than distant tinkle. The discovery scene too lacks hysterics, and Judi Dench's tortured sleep-walking recollections are almost whispered around a candle flame.

Ian McDiamid's dazzlingly good porter confides in the camera as he offers a careful, moderate discussion of equivocation. But by the end I felt the down-played drama was in danger of becoming flat, and with no severed head, Macduff hailing the next king of Scotland felt almost thrown away. Perhaps that was the point, as if Malcolm's victory will change nothing in this hellish world. But here and elsewhere there were times when I felt a touch cheated by the relentless understatement. 

Yet there's so much to admire, from the daggers chattering in Macbeth's hands as he refuses to return to the crime scene through to a surprisingly full and immensely effective England scene. This even includes (as few productions do) the lines about the ritual administering of the king's touch. The cameras capture so much of this brilliantly well, often playing long scenes with only rare shot changes and invariably finding just the right framing to reveal and heighten an exchange.

The television director was Philip Casson and the executive producer was the legendary Verity Lambert (the first producer of Doctor Who -- the Who/Bard links keep on coming). There's unquestionably a good story to tell about the creation of this landmark drama, and so it's a shame that the DVD issued by Fremantle (which owns the Thames Television library) includes no extras (not to mention cover art  and a screen menu that might have been designed in the nineteenth century).

As the evocative pre-title ident of Tower Bridge recalls, Macbeth was made by Thames Television at a point when, under director of programmes Jeremy Isaacs, it was a creative and commercial powerhouse. The company had recently made the landmark dramas Bill Brand and Rock Follies and its Euston Films subsidiary had produced Out and was about to release the first Minder and the final Quatermass. Yet despite its murky visuals this small-screen Scottish play more than holds its own in such company.