Cush Jumbo is to play Lady Macbeth this winter in a production at London’s Donmar Warehouse that reunites her with David Tennant, her co-star in the Channel 4 TV series Deadwater Fell.
Earlier this month it was announced that Tennant would take on the title role in Max Webster’s production of Macbeth, expected to be one of this year’s hottest tickets. Jumbo’s casting marks her return to the Covent Garden theatre where she played Mark Antony in an acclaimed all-female production of Julius Caesar in 2012, directed by Phyllida Lloyd.
Jumbo said it had been “a joy to investigate Shakespeare” in such an intimate venue on that occasion and that Lady Macbeth is an irresistible part for actors: “She’s on everybody’s list.” Two years ago, in conversation with Anne-Marie Duff for the Guardian, she said that she would love to play the role. The timing has to be right, she reflected this week, adding that she is looking forward to exploring the role as a mother (she has a young son).
Webster, who directed Kit Harington as Henry V at the Donmar last year, stages Shakespeare “in the now”, said Jumbo, “not somewhere in the past”. As such, one task will be “to make sense of the supernatural” in a modern setting. “We’re leaning into the psychology of that rather than: ‘Abracadabra, here are three witches!’”
Her last Shakespearean role, as Hamlet at the Young Vic in 2021, was “life-changing” for Jumbo, who praised the support she had received from fellow cast members, particularly the younger actors, as it is “an enormous show to carry” as the lead. “You really can’t have much more of a workout than that – you come back with much stronger muscles for next time,” she said.
Working together on the crime drama Deadwater Fell, before she played Shakespeare’s tragic prince, Jumbo and Tennant discussed Hamlet and Shakespeare in depth, she said. The Channel 4 series was their first project together although “we moved around each other in the Doctor Who universe” because she was in the BBC sci-fi show’s spin-off, Torchwood, in 2009. Tennant, who played the Doctor from 2005 to 2010, is “the kindest, most generous actor”, she added.
Jumbo has just finished filming the thriller Criminal Record for Apple TV+ on which she served as executive producer and stars with another former Doctor, Peter Capaldi. Filmed in London, it is a police corruption story she describes as “really exciting, very dark”.
The stage-fighting skills she honed on Hamlet proved useful for Jumbo’s role in another new thriller, Balestra, about an Olympic fencer. “I gave myself a stress fracture while I was training to fence,” she said. “It healed in the end but as usual I can’t do anything by halves.”
Jumbo and Tennant’s Macbeth is among a wave of star-powered Shakespeare productions this year. Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma will play the lead roles in Simon Godwin’s tour of the same play, opening in Liverpool, while Kenneth Branagh is taking on King Lear in the West End.
Macbeth opens for previews at the Donmar on 8 December and runs until 10 February.
