‘Be bloody, bold, and resolute’: Big Telly Theatre

‘Dim those lights, close those curtains, stay in your rooms, and be vigilant’. Another government variation on #StayAlert, equally vague, but this time for those in self-isolation from the rest of their household? No, thank goodness – rather, the mantra drummed into all viewers of Big Telly Theatre's production of Macbeth, live streamed via Zoom throughout October.

The play was the Northern Irish theatre company's second Zoom performance, having produced The Tempest three weeks after the first national lockdown. Big Telly's co-founder and artistic director, Zoe Seaton, explains, ‘When lockdown happened, Big Telly was running six projects, and we basically had to tell all of our artists to go home. But we could pay them, so that meant that we had about 15 or 20 brilliant artists on the payroll and at home, so we started experimenting with isolation theatre.’