Macbeth

Last night I was watching the 1948 movie of Macbeth, directed by and starring Orson Welles and based on the William Shakespeare play. Set in medieval Scotland, the story concerns celebrated soldier Macbeth (played by Orson Welles) who, after a victorious battle, encounters three strange women who proclaim that he will be named Thane of Cawdor and that shortly afterwards he will become king of Scotland. Immediately after they disappear, Macbeth is met by a messenger who informs him that the current Thane of Cawdor is due to be executed for treason, and that the King has appointed Macbeth Thane of Cawdor as a reward for his victory. Furthermore, the King and his entourage are going to be spending the night in Macbeth's castle. When he tells the news to his wife, she encourages Macbeth to murder the King in order to fulfill the prophecy. The movie suffers from badly recorded sound and some bizarre attempts at Scottish accents, with Welles' accent especially prone to drifiting back and forth across the Atlantic. However, it is very atmospheric with the sets and production design conveying a powerful sense of decay and corruption. There is an old theatrical superstition that Macbeth is an unlucky play, and it is said to be very bad luck to say the title of the play in a theatre, it is often referred to as "The Scottish Play". One of the stories behind it is that Shakespeare stole some of the rituals and spells from a real witches coven and used them in the play without permission and so the witches cursed it in revenge.

This morning my Dad came to collect me and we went along to the Omni Centre shopping mall, where we had some coffee and a chocolate muffin. Then we split up and did some of our own shopping. I got a book called Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman.

Then I went along to my parent's house for lunch as usual for a Sunday.