h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Macbeth: a filmed play with the RSC starring Anthony Sher and Harriett Walter 2001

I have been collecting recorded productions of Shakespeare’s plays for many years. They used to be video tapes; latterly they are on DVD’s. I will occasionally replace an old videotape with a DVD. Some are not replaceable because they were taped off TV and have never been available to purchase. This is available to purchase but my copy was taped off air on 1st January 2001 and there is a particular reason I still keep it.

One unexpected pleasure watching an old tape is the other programmes that may be included. Sometimes the tape has been allowed to run to the end and news programmes and weather reports, satirical quizzes and many other delights suddenly appear from the mists of time. This tape has an added bonus; before the performance of the play there is a half hour programme presented by Tony Robinson on the true history of Macbeth. Not only was it fascinating to watch, but it also solved the thematic problem for today’s journal. Cheers Baldrick.

Macbeth: The story of a man driven by ambition, and the temptation of dark supernatural forces, to kill his King and usurp the throne. Encouraged by an evil wife, he wades in blood to sustain his rule and his country groans under his oppression. And how in the end his bloodthirsty reign is ended when just retribution falls on his head.

Macbeth: the story of a Scottish warlord who takes his rightful throne that had been usurped by another, and rules over a rich and happy Kingdom until beaten back into the Highlands by Anglo Scots and is eventually killed in battle, so destroying the last true Scottish Kingdom.

History, they say, is written by the victors. But even the chroniclers didn’t do the hatchet job on Macbeth that Will did.

The play: Macbeth wins a victory against invaders and rebels and is rewarded by the saintly King Duncan with the addition of Thane of Cawdor to add to his title of Glamis. On his way to greet the King, Macbeth and Banquo meet three witches who prophesy that Macbeth will be Cawdor and King, and that Banquo, though no King, will be father to a line of Kings. They meet with Duncan who announces that his son Malcolm is to be the next King.

Reality: Macbeth is a Highland warlord. He has a wife, Gruoch, descended from Scottish Kings, who was reputed to be a saintly woman who funded the production of holy manuscripts at a local monastery. Scotland was an elective Monarchy, similar to a number of Scandinavian Kingdoms. At each succession a select group would vote for the new King, candidates being taken from the adult males most closely related to the Royal line. Hence the reason that Claudius is King after the death of old Hamlet.

In Scotland that line descended from Kenneth MacAlpine, and had split into two branches. Custom decreed that the throne alternate between these branches. In the play Duncan is effectively breaking with custom in naming his son as a successor. In reality it was Duncan’s grandfather who broke with custom by naming Duncan as the next King. The rightful King was, in fact, Macbeth.

The play: After the battle, Duncan visits Macbeth at Dunsinane and is murdered in his sleep by Macbeth, who also murders the King’s servants and lays the blame on them. Duncan’s sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, fly the castle to seek refuge in England and Ireland and they are blamed for the plot. Macbeth then goes to Scoon to be crowned as King.

Reality: Duncan is killed in battle fighting against the forces of Macbeth. His son Malcolm escapes to England. Macbeth goes to Scoon but he isn’t crowned. That is a much later tradition. He does process with his supporters to a hill where he sits on the Stone of Destiny, the names of the Kings of Scotland are read out ending with his name, and he is then acclaimed by the assembled audience.

The play: Desperately seeking to maintain his hold on the crown, Macbeth arranges for the murder of Banquo and Macduff. Macduff has fled to England so Macbeth has Macduff’s wife and children slaughtered instead. The country is oppressed by his rule. Reflecting the idea that the health of the King is reflected in the health of his country, there is a darkness over the land, crops fail, misery abounds.

Reality: The reign of Macbeth was a huge success. It was the high point of the Gaelic Kings of Scotland. A time of rising prosperity, good crops, and safety and security for the general population. So secure was the Kingdom that Macbeth could take a few months off in 1050 and go on a pilgrimage to Rome. He didn’t murder Banquo, nor Lady Macduff and her children as they were inventions of later chroniclers.

The play: Malcolm, Macduff, and the English army surround Macbeth at Dunsinane and in the ensuing battle Macduff, being untimely ripped from his mother and therefore not of woman born, kills Macbeth.

Reality. Malcolm and an English army attack and defeat Macbeth’s forces at Dunsinan Hill but Macbeth escapes back into the Highlands, where he lives for some years more, until finally defeated and killed in battle by Malcolm’s army.

Shakespeare gives Macbeth virtually no redeeming feature aside from his bravery in battle. Lady Macbeth is similarly treated. The play was written in late 1605/early 1606 and played before the new King James the first of England, the sixth of Scotland, who had succeeded Elizabeth on the throne in 1603. Something else happened in 1605.

Remember, remember, the fifth of November
Gunpowder, treason, and plot

The play tells of a good and saintly King, cruelly murdered by a man working under the influence of satanic powers. And of the chaos and misery subsequently visited upon his poor country. It was a perfect play to put on for a King who had narrowly escaped death with most of the ruling classes in a devilish plot inspired by the devil of the Catholic Church.

The witches in the story were Shakespeare’s invention. In 11th century Scotland the Christian church was a little more relaxed about this sort of stuff than later ages. They generally felt that taking it seriously enough to barbecue people who said they were able to fly through the air accompanied by devils, was to give the claims more respectability than they deserved.

By the 17th century things had changed. King James was very interested in witchcraft and was known to have attended trials and questioned the accused. In 1590 in North Berwick there was a trial of dozens of ‘witches’ accused of plotting against James, then just the sixth of Scotland. The 17th century saw more witches executed than any other period before or since.

It has been suggested that Shakespeare is responsible for the now traditional image of the witch bending over the cauldron and adding loathsome ingredients,

“Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab”

This is, of course, Will taking a satirical swipe at the Scots. When James came to the throne he brought with him many of his countrymen to London. Scottish culinary delights were no doubt added to the menus at Whitehall and Greenwich. The Scots had a reputation for porridges and gruels and all sorts of odd unidentified parts of animals boiled up in large pans. The above list is probably fairly close to an Englishman’s idea of the contents of Haggis.

And a brief précis of the history of the Stone of Destiny: The Stone was captured by Edward I in 1296 and taken to Westminster Abbey, where it was fitted into a wooden chair, known as King Edward's Chair, on which most subsequent English sovereigns have been crowned. There is a theory that the real stone was hidden and the English fooled into taking another unimportant chunk of granite south. The original was carefully hidden by monks, so carefully that it has never been found.

In 1950 a group of Scottish students repatriated the stone back to Scotland, and in typically student fashion, managed to break it in two. It was repaired and discovered in a Scottish church some months later and returned to the Abbey.

In 1996, it was decided that the stone should be returned to Scotland and only brought back to England for use in coronations. I haven’t spoken to Alex Salmond in quite a while so I cannot say whether this agreement will remain in force or whether another Edward may have to be despatched north at the appropriate time to bring it back

An enlightening journal. I admire your scholarship!

Don't admire too much

In the film 'Shirley Valentine' there is a flashback to the schoolday's of the eponymous hero, when, during a school assembly the Head teacher asks 'What was mankind's most important invention'. Shirley's hand goes up but she is ignored as all the bright girls propose their answers. All wrong. Finally the Head says 'Alright, Shirley, what is your answer.'

'The Wheel, Miss', says Shirley, in triumph.

'Someone must have told you' snarls the Head.

Same here. 90% of it I got told. 2% I found out for myself. And the rest is just made up.

You're a true autodidact!

I have been called worse

Deb

I've learnt something every day from your journals, I don't know how you found the time to write so consistently well for the whole month. Every journal could be an Entry.

The funniest production of Macbeth I ever saw had Sean Bean in the title role. Forget any idea of it being Scotland. Sean gave it the Full Yorkshire. I'm not entirely convinced he understood what he was saying, but it was a packed house, which any theatre would be grateful for. It remains to be seen what he'll make of the part in Enemy of Man, released next year. One to review in NaJoPoMo 2014 pebbles!

[Amy P]

Glad they have provided enjoyment. They have no other point. Writing is easy for me, I am retired and live alone and am obsessed by the subject anyway.

I have no doubt 'Enemy of Man' will join the collection in the future. I noted that the third weird sister is played by Amelia Curtis who is, according to the info on IMDb, the partner of the director.

Which reminded me of a story the theatre critic Bernard Levin once told. He was asked about the third murderer in 'Macbeth'. When Macbeth assigns the hit on Banquo there are only two murderers. When the deed is done there are three. 'Well', said Bernard, 'It is the theatre. Shakespeare was probably asked to put in a couple of lines for his patron's boyfriend to play.'

Yes. It's a mystery.