A triumph.

I've just returned home, braving the risk of eye strain and a sleepless night by blogging at this ungodly hour, to share my joy at having seen Patrick Stewart in Macbeth, at the Gielgud Theatre, London. Tonight was my long-overdue first time seeing Shakespeare on stage, and I feel I have been spoilt beyond measure, so much so that I wonder if anything subsequent to this is destined to disappoint.

Patrick Stewart is brilliant in the lead role, but his presence as a big-name star seems to have attracted the best the London theatre scene has to offer, all of whom are currently on five-star form. 'Pin-drop', reverential silence met Michael Feast's rendering of the moment that Macduff is informed his wife, children and servants have been slaughtered at the hand of his former kinsman, gasps attended the pivotal scene at the end of the first act where Banquo's bloodied ghost arrives at the banquet to the astonishment and terror of the eponymous hero, and rapturous applause greeted the entire cast once the breath-taking performance had come to an end.

It was a staging drenched with Soviet, Stalin-esque imagery, the paraphernalia of an extremist state evident in the set design, the costumes, et al - and the programme notes (with their quotes from the aforementioned Russia dictator alongside the likes of 20th century agitator-general George Orwell, among others) underscored this brilliantly. The use of a grainy television set and full-colour projected imagery, skewered with interference and a CCTV-like resolution quality, evoked the staging's allusions to our surveillance culture, implying an Orwellian prescience.

Macbeth is at once a play which tells us something undeniable about the human condition, but at the same time incorporates elements so removed from the overwhelming majority of human experience so that the audience gravitates to and is repelled by its array of ever more blood-thirsty characters in equal measure. This production highlights the relevance of Shakespeare with supreme success - it is exactly this sort of theatre which keeps Shakespeare alive, more than four centuries after its being written, and ensures generation after generation continue to re-read and re-interpret his canon of work. For even the most sceptical about Shakespeare, this production will win you over.

For the Guardian review, in which Michael Billington reflects on the production's brilliance in far more articulate and lucid terms than I can muster, click here.