Manchester Intl Festival closes with live telecast of ‘Macbeth’

Source:Xinhua Published: 2013-7-22 20:03:01

The Manchester International Festival (MIF) ended last weekend with a theater performance of William Shakespeare's Macbeth broadcast live to cinemas across the world.

Macbeth was performed in a disused church in a derelict industrial area of central Manchester.

It starred Sir Kenneth Branagh, who last year featured in the London Olympics opening ceremony as the title character and Alex Kingston, famous from ER and Doctor Who, as his wife.

During its two-week run, the show had been hailed by critics as one of the highlights of this year's MIF, a biannual festival that concentrates on premieres of original works, many by leading international artists or performers.

Speaking at the final full day of the festival, director Alex Poots told Xinhua what MIF was about: "We commission new work. For each festival, we commission about 18 to 20 pieces across art forms."

"This is the fourth MIF. We launched in 2007 and run every two years," Poots said.

"We launched our first festival with Monkey: Journey to the West, the wonderful Chinese story which was directed by Chen Shizheng," said Poots.

Music for Monkey was by Damon Albarn, from the pop bands Gorillaz and Blur, "so it was a Britain-meets-China project," said Poots, who added that the show was still running six years later, with current performances at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York.

This year's festival was launched with music band Massive Attack collaborating with film maker Adam Curtis.

Posted in: ARTS

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