Many of today’s theatre directors seem to believe that Shakespeare’s work was a huge mistake which they have a duty to correct. According to Max Webster, the director of Macbeth at the Donmar, Shakespeare’s error was to write scripts for the stage which would work better as radio plays.

His amended version is set in a fake recording studio where every seat is equipped with a set of headphones. Spectators must test the gear first to ensure that the stereo effect is working. If not, contact a member of staff, etc. David Tennant, playing the lead, transforms himself from a nice friendly Time Lord into an irascible Scottish warlord. He’s a terrific light comedian but his mischievous off-beat style doesn’t suit the role of an earnest, bloodthirsty villain. His wife is played by a distracted Cush Jumbo, who wanders around in a white satin kaftan which might be Gandalf’s nightie. Puzzlingly, she pops up in Lady Macduff’s main scene as well, disguised as the au pair. Newcomers to the play will assume that Lady Macbeth went undercover to help kill Macduff’s children. Not a helpful innovation.

Many of the actors are misgendered and all are mis-costumed. They wear Primark T-shirts, black kilts and dark knee-length woollen stockings as if they’re about to attend a cheerless picnic in a rainy glen organised by the venture scouts. The words of the actors, piped directly into one’s brain via the headphones, are supplemented by musicians playing Irish pub favourites on keening violins and skirling pipes. Angelic sopranos hit the top notes sweetly. It’s like being stuck in the Aer Lingus VIP lounge.

The Porter, played by Jatinder Singh Randhawa, is supposed to provide comic relief but he spends his time improvising jokes and picking on audience members for fun. ‘They look terrified,’ he scoffs, as he points to a row of play-goers whom he plans to torment. And he mocks everyone in the theatre for wasting money on a radio version of the play. Good point. Better kept to himself, however.

Glancing through the programme, for want of something better to do, you’ll notice that many of the warlords are played by skinny young actresses whom Macbeth could strangle to death with very little exertion. In a medieval court, where all disputes are moderated by violence, these physical imbalances matter. Asking girls to play Highland chiefs and battle-hardened warriors makes the play unintelligible. The viewer has to mentally translate the director’s whims into reality while trying to enjoy the show. It’s homework, not entertainment. In the closing scene, Scotland falls into the hands of an attractive young starlet with cropped brown hair who is shorter than her sword. She’s the new king, apparently, but her reign wouldn’t last five minutes. Some burly clansman would nab her crown, pick her up by the ears and fling her over the battlements. This isn’t Shakespeare but a war against Shakespeare waged by conceptualist nit-pickers and pretentious smart alecks who sift through the text looking for perceived errors and imaginary lapses to tut over.

Tom Stoppard’s Rock ’n’ Roll opens with the news that Soviet tanks have rolled into Prague to crush the 1968 uprising. An idealistic young philosopher, Jan, decides to leave Cambridge and return to his native Czechoslovakia to support the rebels. Bad move, advises his professor, Max, whose support for the Bolsheviks has never wavered. ‘I was born in the year of the revolution,’ he says repeatedly, to anyone who’ll listen. Max is the archetypal Marxist bore who sets his political dreams above human life. These days he’d be blocking ambulances on bridges to hinder oil production. When Jan reaches Prague, suitcase full of rock albums, he finds the situation to be far more dangerous than he expected. Stalked by the secret police, he’s arrested and forced to work in menial jobs for the next 12 years. His beloved collection of LPs gets trashed by eavesdroppers from the ministry of the interior.

Stoppard treats Max and the secret police with far more leniency than they deserve. And, as always, he gives the audience a pat on the back for being smart enough to attend one of his plays. The script even includes a seminar on Sappho during which Max’s wife discusses the poetess’s use of the word ‘uncontrollable’ in ancient Greek. You emerge from the theatre feeling your IQ has risen by ten points, and your journey home is beset by pangs of sympathy for the lesser mortals who surround you.

Nina Raine’s handsome production doesn’t put a foot wrong. Nancy Carroll shines as Max’s beautiful wife, who has to deal with his infidelities while fighting off terminal cancer. Nathaniel Parker works wonders as the grizzled Bolshevik loudmouth whose moral inertia lies at the play’s core. Even before the action starts he has become the stagnant political principle he once strove to defeat.