FIRST-class drama graduate Mark Flynn raised the bar for what just might be Shakespeare’s most manly play yet.

Though neither staged in a mystical forest, at a masquerade ball or even on a tempestuous island, this play was delivered to its audience – in the gym.

All the money raised will go straight to Prostate Cancer UK.

Mark told the story of a young man determined to be “the biggest, strongest and best”.

Whilst battling with his masculinity and ego, Mark used elements of Macbeth and text from the original play to show his own mental struggles and eventual downfall.

Winchester Discovery Centre saw this original, powerful piece delivered in its main theatre but with a twist – there was no seating and the audience were not only crowded around Mark but were immersed in the play in one of the most creative uses of interactive theatre.

Mark literally used audience members to move props, assist him with his weights and face the full throttle of his psychological downfall.

Macbeth Gets Manly is the first piece of theatre Mark has produced since becoming freelance, creating almost all of the effects and digital elements of the show himself, with help from assistant director Edward Pontone, Charlotte Rachel Louise Cooper as stage manager and Trafford Ayres as technician.

Overall, a fantastic piece of theatre, drawing on aspects of the male mind and satirising the lad culture we’ve seen grow over the past years.

Mark has the ability to make his mates in the gym love his character, then in a second, as he descends into madness and becomes a bully, they would be fixated, tense and even apprehensive of his wayward character.

Eat. Sleep. Kill the King!

LUKE ADDISON