After a highly successful international 90-show tour spanning New Zealand and Australia of a double Shakespeare bill of Macbeth and Romeo & Juliet, The Barden Party, known for their bold musical reimagining of Shakespeare, will tour their audacious interpretation of Macbeth to Scotland making its international debut at the 2025 Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
In this striking retelling, all the “kings” are played by Queens – powerful women commanding the stage with grit, grace, and no apologies. At the heart of the production is real-life couple Laura Irish and Ollie Howlett as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, bringing electrifying chemistry and emotional nuance to this bold Southern Gothic adaptation. Backed by a live Americana/folk soundtrack, this Macbeth pulses with swagger, sorrow, and rebellion.
Read on to discover more about the shows and philosophy behind The Barden Party:
How would you describe your show to someone who knows very little about it?
Romeo & Juliet is the classic story of love and loss we all know, with Australasian indie-folk music woven through-out to take the audience on an even bigger emotional rollercoaster than a traditional production.
Macbeth is a bluegrass/Americana version of the Bard’s tale of ambition and betrayal. With songs from the likes of Dolly Parton, Mumford and Sons, and The SteelDrivers. In our version we’ve swapped the power dynamic on its head, with all the rulers of Scotland in the play being Queens instead of Kings!
What makes it stand out and why should people see it?
In our Adaptations we try to ride the line between staying faithful to the original text and finding a way to make it truly ours. I think we’ve really nailed that balance with these two shows and have a best theatre award from week one 2024 and week two 2025 for Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth respectively, so we must be doing something right with these shows!
How long was the process from idea to writing to stage? Any challenges along the way?
Laura and I started creating Macbeth around May of 2024, and started rehearsals in October 2024, and then embarked on a 90-show tour of Australia and New Zealand between November and April. It’s been an absolute ride of ups and downs getting the show from conception, to selling out our closing night at the Adelaide Fringe Festival, to finishing off our tour with a run at the pump house theatre in Auckland and artworks theatre on Waiheke Island. Even through all that, we still want to keep the show alive and pumping, taking it to Chapel Off Chapel and then to the Edinburgh Fringe!
What attracts you to Shakespeare and particularly the two plays you are performing?
Romeo & Juliet has always been my favourite Shakespearean play, and one of my favourite comedies of all time. I think it is a very misunderstood play, and I feel like it’s got a bad wrap in the past for being cliché. I felt really drawn to the play, and particularly to bringing out the high highs and low lows I felt like were sitting in the play and often overlooked.
Macbeth is Laura’s favourite Shakespearean play, and when we started tossing around the idea of doing Macbeth as our latest show offering, the idea came to us to gender swap the kings to be queens and see how that changed the power dynamics of the play and from there it really took on a life of its own.
How would you describe your relationship with the audience and what do you love the most about live performance?
I like to think of the audiences of our shows as an extension of us as a cast, they are just as integral to the energy of the room we perform in as any of the actors, story or music. Our shows aren’t a traditional theatre experience, we start the show as the audience enters just as ourselves and we chat and get to know each other and really build up a shared trust between performer and viewer, we want to not only take you on an emotional ride through the show but also be on that ride with you.
Who would you say have been your biggest inspirations?
For me, it has to be Anaïs Mitchell. Her work not only on Hadestown in all its forms from concept album to full-fledged award-winning Broadway show, but her work as a musician and storyteller constantly gives me something to aspire to!
What are three things that would surprise people to learn about you?
– Before joining The Barden Party, I worked in logistics for the New Zealand Blood Service helping to make sure that all of the hospitals and blood banks around New Zealand had the vital products they need to keep people healthy.
– I used to play field hockey as a goal keeper for the Hawkes Bay Rep teams in New Zealand
– Every day I dream about opening my own craft beer brewery
Tell me a little about the genesis of The Barden Party and why it was created
Laura created the company in the height of covid restrictions in New Zealand as a way for actors who kept getting traditional theatre work cancelled on them to still work safely and within the regulations. I joined the company the following year in 2022 and have been with it ever since, from Much Ado About Nothing, to our critically acclaimed immersive theatre show Butterfly Smokescreen which ran for 11 weeks on a super yacht in Auckland’s viaduct harbour.
Tell me a little about your next venture, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival
We truly believe that the work we create has something special to offer, and we want to share that with as many people as possible. We hope that in spending so much money to get our show over to the Edinburgh Fringe that we are investing in the future of the company and that we’ll be able to get the right eyes on our show and company to help us break through to the next level of what we can do!
More information visit thebardenparty.com.
