Displaying items by tag: Shakespeare

The Everyman is dead. Long live the Everyman.

The last time I saw Dave Morrissey on stage at the Liverpool Everyman, we were both members of the Everyman Youth Theatre. He often performed with his friend Ian Davies, later to call himself Ian Hart.

The pair were extraordinary for their great focus and clarity, focus that would be remarkable even in jobbing actors, and all the more so as they were teenagers improvising. Morrissey and Hart always had presence, and you knew, however young they were, that you were in the presence of talent that would out. (This was the same talent and intention we saw in our bare workshop space when a young woman did an absolutely captivating 10 minute improvisation on the unpromising theme of ‘feeding the ducks’. Even at 12, we were spellbound. She was Cathy Tyson, later to star in Mona Lisa.)

Morrissey’s Macbeth is a man’s man, very present and very solid, and the actor brings his full range of talents to bear.