By betting on Mackenzie, Yve Blake’s Y2K-inspired adaptation of the Bard’s darkest tragedy, Bell Shakespeare wagers that the classics still have the power to captivate.

Over the last couple of years, certain hallmarks of the Y2K era have been demonstrating a dogged determination to come back into vogue. The horrors of low-rise jeans and a preoccupation with extreme thinness being chief among the most concerning aspects.

However, there is one trend that we’re pleased to see making a comeback – and that is the art of proving the enduring appeal of Shakespeare by taking his plays and turning them into modern dramatic teen comedies.

The late 90s and early 2000s gave us such enduring bangers as 10 Things I Hate About You (loosely adapted from The Taming of the Shrew) and She’s The Man (after Twelfth Night, and arguably Amanda Bynes’ best work). And while stylistically they feel worlds apart, these films all belong to a canon that was started when Baz Luhrmann and Catherine Martin’s Romeo + Juliet burst into cinemas 20 years ago and broke all of the rules. Audiences were prompted to ask ‘wait, is Shakespeare cool?’ and the studios were prompted to ask ‘wait, can this make us some money?’

Hence, it actually shouldn’t come as a total shock that Australia’s leading theatre company specialising in the works of William Shakespeare, Bell Shakespeare, would invest in a sparkly teenage twist on Macbeth set in 2006. Much less, that it totally works. In fact, it’s rather delightful.