The buzzer started.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Peregrine. ‘I’ll have to go. I promised my young son. He’ll be having kittens. Thank you, Winty. I’ll come in tomorrow morning.’

‘Oh. Well…I think we’d better have a talk.’

‘So do I. Tomorrow. Thank you.’

Out in the foyer he found Robin under the photograph of Macbeth.

‘Oh, hullo,’ he said casually when Peregrine reached him. ‘There’s the bell.’

‘Where’s Cip?’

Crispin was over in the crowd by the bookstall. He was searching his pockets. Peregrine, closely followed by Robin, worked his way over to him.

‘I’ve got it all but twenty p.,’ said Crispin. He clutched a book, Macbeth Through Four Centuries.

Peregrine produced a five-pound note. ‘For the book,’ he said, and they returned to their box. The interval ended, the house darkened and the curtain rose.

On Banquo. Alone and suspicious. Macbeth questions him. He is going out? Riding? He must return. For the party. Does Fleance go with him? Yes. Yes to all those questions. There is a terrible smile on Macbeth’s face, the lips stretch back. ‘Farewell.’

Seyton is at once sent for the murderers. He has them ready and stands in the doorway and hears the wooing. Macbeth is easier, almost enjoys himself. They are his sort. He caresses them. The bargain is struck, they go off.

Now Lady Macbeth finds him: full of strange hints and of horror. There is the superb invocation to night and he leads her away. And the scene changes. Seyton joins the murderers and Banquo is dispatched.

Back to the banquet.

Seyton tells Macbeth that Fleance escaped.

The bloodied Ghost of Banquo appears among the guests.

And now the play begins to swell towards its appointed ending. After the witches, the apparitions, the equivocal promises, the murder of Macduff’s wife and child, comes Lady Macbeth. Asleep and talking in that strange metallic nightmare voice. Macbeth again, after a long interval. He has degenerated and shrunk. He beats about him with a kind of hectic frenzy and peers hopelessly into the future. These are the death-throes of a monster. Please let Macduff find him and finish it.

Macduff has found him.

‘Turn, hell-hound. Turn.’

Now the fight. The leap, clash, sweep as Macbeth is beaten backwards, Macduff raises his claymore and they plunge out of sight. A scream. Silence. Then the distant approach of pipe and drums. Malcolm and his thanes come out on the upper landing. The rest of his troops march on at stage level and up the steps with Old Siward, who receives the news of his son’s death.

Macduff comes on downstage, OP followed by Seyton.

Seyton carries his claidheamh-mor and on it, streaming blood, the head of Macbeth.

He turns it upstage, facing Malcolm and the troops.

Macduff has not looked at it.

He shouts, ‘“Behold where stands the usurper’s cursed head. Hail, King of Scotland.”’

The blood drips into Seyton’s upturned face.