William piped up. ‘When I’m stabbed,’ he said. ‘I kind of hold the wound and then collapse. Could the murderer catch me before I fall?’

‘Certainly,’ said Peregrine. ‘He’s meant to.’

‘Sorry,’ said the murderer. ‘I missed it. I was too late.’

They ploughed on. Attention to details. Getting everything right, down to the smallest move, the fractional pause. Changes of pace building towards a line of climax. Peregrine spent three-quarters of an hour over the cauldron scene. The entire cast were required to whisper the repeated rhythmic chant as in a round. ‘Double, double toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble.’

At last they moved on. There were no more questions. Peregrine thanked them. ‘Same time tomorrow,’ he said, ‘and I hope no stops. You’ve been very patient. Bless you all. Good night.’

II

But again next day there were stops. A number of technical hitches occurred during the final dress rehearsal, mostly to do with the lights. They were all cleared up. Peregrine had said to the cast: ‘Keep something in the larder. Don’t reach the absolute tops. Play within yourselves. Conserve your energy. Save the consummate thing for the performance. We know you can do it, my dears. Don’t exhaust yourselves.’

They obeyed him but there were one or two horrors.

Lennox missed an entrance and arrived looking as if the Devil himself was after him.

Duncan lost his lines, had to be prompted and was slow to recover. Nina Gaythorne dried completely and looked terrorstricken. William went straight on with his own lines. ‘And must they all be hanged that swear and lie?’ and she answered like an automaton.

‘It was a dose of stage fright,’ she said when they came off. ‘I didn’t know where I was or what I said. Oh, this play. This play.’

‘Never mind, Miss Gaythorne,’ said William, taking her hand. ‘It won’t happen again. I’ll be with you.’

‘That’s something,’ she said, half-laughing and half-crying.

At the end they rehearsed the curtain call. The ‘dead’ characters on the OP side and the live ones on the Prompt. Then the Macbeths alone and finally the man himself. Alone.

Peregrine took his notes and thanked his cast. ‘Change but don’t go,’ he said. ‘Bad dress. Good show,’ quoted the stage director cheerfully. Are we getting them down tomorrow?’

‘No. They’ll be right. We’ll make it a technical rehearsal now,’ said Peregrine. ‘We’ll run through the lighting and effects without the actors tomorrow.’

He put this to the company.

‘If we get it rotten-perfect now, you can sleep in tomorrow morning. It’s just a matter of working straight on from cue to cue with nothing between. All right? Any objections? Banquo?’

‘I?’ said Banquo who had been ready to make one. ‘Objections? Oh no. No.’