My professional acting debut. I played two characters: the 3rd witch, and the cream-faced loon who tells Macbeth that the English army has been sighted. In the latter role, I didn’t have to act being scared: our Macbeth, David Calder, grabbed me tight by the collar and thrust a flambeau aggressively towards my face. My witch required more imaginative effort. The weird sisters’ scenes were heavily cut by our rationalist director, so we had less to do than we might have done, but what was left to us involved scuttling around covered in fleck-painted transparent PVC cloaks. My awareness of the potential comedy in this situation sometimes got the better of me…
I wrote some military music for the production. Two trumpets and a trombonist came in to record it. They were joined by one of the actors in the company who played the drums very well.
Looking back, I can see how fortunate I was to start of my working life at the Duke’s of that time. The management’s policy was that everyone would be on the same wage, which was good for the self-esteem of a novice like me. There was a lot of political discussion at the regular company meetings. This exasperated some people, but I lapped it up.
