by Simon Brett
On the other hand . . . It would be dreadful to be taken short on stage. He didn’t want to add a new legend to the apocrypha of stories of actors peeing into pot-plants, bottles and armour during performances.
Hmm. Tricky one.
He succumbed and had a pee.
As soon as the play started, it was evident that John B. Murgatroyd’s assessment of the audience had erred on the side of charity. They were an awful load of little buggers.
They greeted the Witches’ first appearance with raucous catcalls, which drowned most of their words. And, predictably enough, Duncan’s opening line, ‘What bloody man is that?’ got a huge belter.
The bloody man in question, waiting at the back of the auditorium, felt a tremor pass through Lennox, who was supporting him. ‘Come on, love,’ murmured John B. Murgatroyd, and began to steer the Bleeding Sergeant down the aisle.
They would never be absolutely certain, but they both remained convinced to the end of their days that the leg outstretched across the gangway had been deliberately placed. Certainly no planning could have made it more effective. Charles lost his footing and stumbled forward, dragging John B. in his wake.
Their tumbled arrival at the foot of the stage was rewarded by a huge laugh. The audience of schoolchildren settled back. They were going to enjoy this.
Charles was still supported by Lennox, as per rehearsal, when he went through the Bleeding Sergeant’s somewhat wordy account of Macbeth and Banquo’s battle against ‘the merciless Macdonwald’. At one point he looked full into Lennox’s face, and at that moment John B. Murgatroyd closed his eyes.
Charles realised instantly why his friend had kept his helmet on in the dressing room. This joke had taken preparation. Neatly written on the pale make-up of the right eyelid was the word ‘Fuck’; and on the left eyelid the word ‘Off’.
Charles, who was maundering on about ‘shipwracking storms and direful thunders’, felt his voice begin to tremble as the giggle caught up with him. John B., making it look as if he were helping out his ailing comrade, slapped him on the back and took his hand in a comforting, manly grasp.
Charles felt something hard and round thrust into his hand. Squinting as he tried to continue his lines, he looked down.
There, nestling in his palm, was a walnut.
While being dragged off to have his gashes attended to (moving rather faster than usual because he was desperate for another pee), Charles managed to fall against Donalbain, and as the other actor reached to help him, shoved the walnut into his unsuspecting hand.
From there on, throughout the play it did the rounds, provoking a whole lot of giggling backstage, and a whole lot of new moves onstage, as actors desperately tried to avoid the fate of being the one who had to take the walnut off.
And the audience continued to chatter, whistle and devise other diversionary tactics.
They rustled crisp packets. Then one of them, no doubt a future captain of industry, had the bright idea of blowing them up and bursting them.
In a more planned campaign, a group of them set the alarms of their digital watches to go off at one-minute intervals.
And, meanwhile, the barracking also continued. Many lines took on new and filthy meanings. All the play’s dramatic climaxes were defused by heckling.
‘I have done the deed,’ Macbeth announced.
‘Ooh, you dirty beast!’ came a cry from the audience.
In the Banquet Scene Lady Macbeth’s line, ‘When all’s done, You look but on a stool’ was capped by a call of ‘Well, you should have flushed it, shouldn’t you?’
As the Witches loaded their ingredients into the cauldron there were demands for more ketchup.
And so on and so on.
Once that kind of thing starts in a performance, it’s difficult to stop, and the cast, relaxed into the second week of their run and secure in the knowledge that Gavin Scholes was in London for the day, made little attempt to stop it.
Mounting hysteria ran through the company. They knew it was unprofessional, they knew they shouldn’t. But they did.
Felicia Chatterton alone seemed immune to the general mood. She was incapable of levity and continued, against all the odds, to give her Lady Macbeth.
And it was good. As ever, Charles had to admit that. But he really would like to see her break up on stage. Just once.
He watched her as she drifted about the stage in her low-cut nightgown for the Sleepwalking Scene. Oblivious to the catcalls from the audience, her concentration on the role remained total.
He moved his legs uneasily. Oh God, he couldn’t need yet another pee, could he? He tried to think of something else.
The Gentlewoman in the scene seemed to be acting closer to him than usual, and as she said the line, ‘I would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity of the whole body’, she suddenly tapped Charles on the shoulder.
He started at the unexpected action, and as he turned, felt a familiar object thrust into his hand. The Gentlewoman, backing away downstage, stuck her tongue out at him.
Charles Paris knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t resist it.
He walked across to the sleepwalking Lady Macbeth, and neatly dropped the walnut down her delicious cleavage.
He was rewarded by a look of amazement, and then a sweet, sweet moment as Felicia Chatterton dissolved into uncontrollable giggles.
