“I have supped full with horrors”

In a brutal society where power is concentrated in the hands of warlords known as Thanes, order is maintained through unwavering devotion to the King. Away from the clans and the heavily fortified strongholds of the Thanes, satanic cults and strange rituals undermine the feudal order.

Macbeth is a war hero, disturbed, in his hour of success, by a prophecy that he will one day be ruler. Goaded by his ambitious wife into an act that goes against his deepest instincts of loyalty, he unleashes a cycle of violence that plunges the country into terror and dictatorship.

This timeless story of witchcraft, murder, totalitarianism, and how a man becomes a monster is brought to the NOH and Smock Alley by Volta, Ireland’s most exciting new Shakespearean theatre company.

Age suitability: 16+
Warnings: Violence

WRITTEN BY William Shakespeare
DIRECTED BY Liam Hourican
LIGHTING DESIGN BY Colin Doran
SET DESIGN BY Chrysi Chatzivasileiou
COSTUME DESIGN BY Jeni Roddy
SOUND DESIGN BY Denis Clohessy
DRAMATURG Bridget Hourican
FIGHT DIRECTOR Colin O’Grady
PHOTOGRAPHER Malcolm McGettigan
VIDEO DIRECTOR David Crann

CAST Fiona Browne, Davy Crann, Sean Duggan, Myles Feerick, Liam Hourican, Gillian Roberts, Jim Roche

TICKETS €20 | €16

RUNNING TIME 1 hr 55 mins incl. 15 min interval

About the Company
Volta Theatre Company is a new company with a mission to bring high quality productions of Shakespeare and other classical works to a wide audience. With a residency at the National Opera House, it is a company of highly experienced actors, musicians and designers who have worked intensively in Irish theatre, television and film. The company was founded in 2023 by Liam Hourican and Jim Roche, long-time collaborators in sketch comedy for Channel 4, RTE and The Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Following a highly successful adaptation of stories from Joyce’s Dubliners at the James Joyce Centre and Bewleys Café Theatre (‘exquisite… perfection’ Sunday Independent), they formed Volta to produce Shakespeare for Leaving Cert students and the wider public. With Volta’s Hamlet enjoying a sell-out run at the Opera House last year, it is expanding its reach this year with Macbeth in Wexford and in Dublin.

Liam Hourican trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, and has performed Shakespeare with Shakespeare’s Globe (under Mark Rylance), The Old Vic and The Oxford Stage Company. In Ireland, he was part of Second Age Theatre Company for several years, playing Edmund in King Lear, Gratiano in Merchant of Venice and Roderigo in Othello. As a writer and director, he began devising comedy sketch shows and stage comedies in 2009, quickly gaining a commission for his own sketch shows on E4 (APE) and Channel 4 (iCandy). Since then he was worked extensively in comedy sketch shows and impressions shows on Channel 4, the BBC and RTE, notably The Savage Eye, the Tracey Ullmann Show and Murder in Successville (in which he gained a cult following as Gordon Ramsay).

Jim Roche is and actor and director who has starred in Normal People (directed by Lenny Abramson (BBC), Harry Wild (Acorn TV), Blood 2 (Virgin Media), Vikings (History Channel), Damo and Ivor, Fair City, Killinaskully, The Mario Rosenstock Show, Dead Still (RTE), The Tudors (Showtime) and iCandy (Channel 4). He directed A Face in the Crowd, a play for schools which continues to tour around the country since 2017.