It is Act One, Scene Four, in the royal castle. The battle is done. King Duncan’s forces have triumphed. The monarch, overwhelmed by relief and happiness, greets and thanks his greatest generals Macbeth and Banquo, before moving on to succession planning.
It is Act One, Scene Four but this time in an impressively equipped school theatre in Chamberí. Duncan has triumphed. He greets Macbeth. And then Banquo. And then his mind goes blank. He wonders regally about the stage, trying desperately to remember the next line, but it’s no use. He might as well be thinking about his Deliveroo order or why the World Cup shouldn’t be in Qatar.
For the second time that day, Banquo rescues Duncan, teeing him up for what is a pivotal speech, naming Malcolm his successor and pushing Macbeth over the edge towards regicide.
I knew the line, of course. “Let me enfold thee, and hold thee to my heart’. I’ve delivered it a dozen times before. I have also written it out from memory every day for three weeks. But if I learned one thing from the opening two shows of the English Theatre Madrid’s Macbeth it is that writing out lines in the peace and tranquillity of my desk is not the same as speaking them in the full glare of LED lighting and under the eye of a fabulous cast in whose company I am not entirely sure I belong.
So what is going through my head, when it should be the cue to embrace Banquo, is mostly, “what the hell are you doing here?”
It is a good question. The last time I trod the boards was in 1989 as the clock was running down on my school days in Somerset. My last show was a mediocre (at best) production of a pretty bad musical called Lock Up Your Daughters, an adaptation of an 18th Century comedy called Rape Upon Rape – just the thing, I’m sure you’ll agree, for a co-educational boarding school. In that production I played a drunk called Mr Sotmore, and was sufficiently bad that my only solo was withdrawn after one performance on account of not being able to sing. A relief for one and all.
Since 1989, theatre has become one of my passions, and I have learned to love Shakespeare in particular. I’ve been lucky with it, seeing Daniel Day-Lewis and Mark Rylance play Hamlet, the latter also as Iago. The late great Alan Rickman with Juliet Stevenson in Anthony and Cleopatra. Derek Jacobi, Eric Porter and, memorably, Glenda Jackson as King Lear. One of the highlights of this year was the National Theatre’s joyous and exuberant Much Ado About Nothing.
People ask me if there’s anything I miss about England. Theatre is always the response. Friends, family and theatre.
In Madrid, where our pigeon Spanish isn’t nearly good enough for theatre en español, we’ve gravitated to opera and the occasional productions from the two English theatre companies here. And for a while I’ve played with the idea that perhaps one day, maybe, I might participate rather than watch.
So in the summer, when I suddenly found myself with a lot of time on my hands, I responded to a Facebook call for an audition for a winter production of Macbeth. I took myself, along with Polonius’s advice to his departing son Laertes, to a studio in Lavapies. After stumbling through “Neither a borrower nor a lender be”, surrounded by infinitely more talented folk, I was handed a piece of Act 4, whenthe Thane of Ross arrives in England to tell MacDuff that his entire family has been murdered by the tyrant.
And something very odd happened. I started reading with a Scottish accent I didn't know I had - in front of two actual Scots who are part of the English Theatre Madrid triumvirate running the show. The only explanation I can give for this is that when reading Shakespeare's words, in my head I heard them in a Scottish accent. And so that’s how I spoke them, as if I was Bill McLaren or Ian Robertson commentating at Murrayfield.
The high point of the whole business was a fellow cast member telling me that until the week of the show he’d actually thought I was Scottish.
And so I was cast as Duncan, the King of Scotland. A good role for a first dip back into theatrical waters. He's only there a little while, doesn't have too many lines, and therefore not too many opportunities to screw up.
Macbeth is not my favourite Shakespearean tragedy. It lacks the emotional depth and complexity of those mentioned earlier. That said, it has pace, intensity and intrigue and when staged imaginatively and with flair can be hugely compelling.
So it was here. Our very talented producers created a Macbeth set in a dystopian punk Scotland two centuries hence, and our artistic director realised their vision with great costume and set design.
And they found a brilliant cast to bring it to life, including a number of professionals. Such was the quality of those around me that from the beginning my main motivation, as a long-term sufferer of imposter syndrome, was not to let them down.
So when I was wondering around the stage on Thursday evening without a useful thought in my head, I thought my worst fears had been realised. Perhaps the effort it had taken to sound like an Edinburgh accountant was so great that there was no room left in my brain for anything else?
But there is true, worthy Banquo pointing out that if the King had some important announcement to make about this son, this would be a good time for it. And off I went, blood pressure 165 over 120, and didn’t look back for the rest of a five show run that about 800 people came to see.
And if all the words didn’t quite come out in the right order, I’m not sure any of them noticed. And the longer the run went on, the less I had to think about the words and the more I could just enjoy the experience and be King of Scotland for 15 minutes per night until Macbeth’s treacherous blade fell and I could leave stage right pursued only by my demons.
And it was a hoot. Throughout, I felt immensely privileged to share the experience and space with so many brilliantly talented people. In the absence of an opportunity at an awards ceremony in which to thank them all publicly, I do so here. Thank you for your companionship, for your patience, your guidance and friendship. It was a marvellous production and a tremendous pleasure to be involved.
And that’s that itch scratched and only I have this left to say: if there’s something you’ve longed to do, go ahead and do it, after all "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players, They have their exits and their entrances, And one man in his time plays many parts."