Macbeth was superb. The triumphant soldier – a glorious figure: ruddy, assured, glowing with his victories. Now, face to face with evil itself and hailed by his new title. The hidden dream suddenly made actual; the unwholesome pretence a tangible reality. He wrote to his wife and sent the letter ahead of his own arrival.

Enter the Lady. Maggie was still feeling her way with the part, but there were no doubts about her intention. She had deliberately faced the facts and made her choice, rejected the right and fiercely embraced the wrong. She now braced herself for the monstrous task of ‘screwing her husband to the sticking-point’, knowing very well that there was no substance in their previous talks although his morbidly vivid imagination gave them a nightmarish reality.

The play hurried on: the festive air, Macbeth’s piper, servants scurrying with dishes of food and flagons of wine, and all the time Macbeth was crumbling. The great barbaric chieftain who should outshine all the rest made dismal mistakes. He was not there to welcome the King, was not in his place now. His wife had to leave the feast, find him, tell him the King was asking for him, only to have him say he would proceed no further in the business and offer conventional reasons.

There was no time to lose. For the last assault she laid the plot before her husband (and the audience) – quickly, urgently and clearly. He caught fire, said he was ‘settled’ and committed himself to damnation.

Seyton, with the claymore, appeared in the shadows. He followed them off.

The lights were extinguished by a servant, leaving only the torch in a wall-bracket outside the King’s door. A pause during which the stealthy sounds of the night were established. Cricket and owl. The sudden crack of expanding wood. A ghostly figure, who would scarcely be seen when the lighting was finalized, appeared on the upper level, entered the King’s rooms, waited there for a heartbeat or two, re-entered and slipped away into the shadows. The Lady.

An inner door at ground level opened to admit Banquo and Fleance, and the exquisite little night scene followed.

Bruce Barrabell had a wonderful voice and he knew how to use it, which is not to say he turned on the Voice Beautiful. It was there, a gift of nature, an arrangement of vocal cords and resonators that stirred the blood in the listener. He looked up, and one knew it was at the night sky where husbandry was practised and the candles were all out. He felt the nervous, emaciated tension of the small hours and was startled by the appearance of Macbeth attended by the tall shadow of Seyton.