MACBETH is a play with a creepy reputation. There are those who argue that the witches’ incantations in Macbeth are real, that ghastly things can happen to actors involved. When the Liverpool Everyman staged a version a few years ago, superstitious performers had the theatre exorcised and more recently a production by the Royal Shakespeare Company had to be called off when the theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon was flooded. But Macbeth is the confident choice of Liverpool’s latest professional theatre group – the Lodestar Theatre Company – to launch the city’s first Liverpool Shakespeare Festival. This year, there will be just one Shakespeare production staged in Liverpool Cathedral and the adjacent St James Gardens. Next year, it is hoped that a series of Shakespeare’s plays will be performed i with different companies involved. The company of 15 technicians and 11 actors has been rehearsing at the Liverpool Institute for the Performing Arts where I went to see them working under director Max Rubin. It was Rubin’s idea to start the company and stage a festival, and getting on board at an early stage was Hamburg-born Nina Borgner acting as creative project manager-cum-producer for the event. She arrived in Liverpool to study arts, music and entertainment management at LIPA and was excited enough by Rubin’s theatre dream to stay on in the city. He is head of of the diploma acting course at LIPA and another visitor to the city who decided to stay. He was an actor who had worked across the country, but six years ago was hired to play the Jack of Hearts in the Liverpool Everyman pantomime Alice in Wonderland. ‘I met my wife in that show – she was playing the Queen of Hearts – but I also loved the city which is why I am still here.’ His plan was to create a professional theatre company which used only local performers and practitioners. ‘Everyone involved can walk to work,’ he says. He also wanted to provide opportunities to the many people leaving places like LIPA. ‘Everyone goes to London and I wanted to create a company which would give them a good reason to stay.’ He took the company’s title from a quotation in Midsummer Night’s Dream: ‘Your eyes are like lodestars’. ‘I liked the idea of the company being something to steer your way by.’ He auditioned and soon had his ideal company, made up of seasoned professionals and those making their first steps in the profession. ‘The experienced actors mentor the others,’ he explains. The decision to stage an annual Liverpool Shakespeare Festival was an early decision. Nina had the task of organising funding and she has done well with support from The Liverpool Culture Company, the Arts Council and various charitable trusts. Deals have been arranged with local businesses. The festival idea has really taken off, she says. ‘Tickets are selling well and we have had people not only booking but writing and telling us how much they are looking forward to it!’ Macbeth will be staged between August 16 and September 8. ‘Originally, we were just going to stage it in the gardens but the cathedral came on board and were very keen, which is why we are staging the first half of the drama inside the cathedral,’ she says. It also means that if it rains the entire show can be staged inside. Rubin is delighted with the setting, particularly the ‘Gothic feel’ of the building. It has led him to design the show with a Victorian/Edwardian feel to it. He has trimmed the dramas only slightly but has removed the chief witch Hecate – ‘not really Shakespeare according to some experts,’ he reports. In the garden performances, incidentally, visitors are advised to take chairs and even picnics. Plans are for a string quartet to play and for a bar. ‘We want to make it more of an event,’ says Nina. It is an ambitious project but one Nina and Max have great confidence in, just as they have with the choice of Macbeth as its first production. ‘I am not concerned about the superstitions surrounding it,’ says Rubin. ‘Besides, the curse struck the RSC and has left us alone.’ Macbeth will run from August 16 until September 8, tickets £15 (concessions £9). Some matinees will be staged entirely in the garden. Visit www.theliverpool shakespeare festival.co.uk | 
