What Bloody Man Is That by Simon Brett Read Free Book Online Page A

hollowed-out cranium. Charles really only began to part company with the concept when he saw the costume designs, and realised that all the characters except for Prospero himself were to be dressed as brain-cells.
    The director’s ideas then got even more convoluted, and he started dividing the cast into different kinds of brain cells, according to which of Prospero’s functions they controlled. Ariel was deemed to control the Visual Area, Caliban the Taste Area, Miranda the Sensory Speech Area, and so on. At the play’s climax, the lines, ‘But this rough magic I here abjure’, Prospero was instructed by the director to have a stroke, thus killing off certain of the other characters (in their roles as brain-cells), and making the principal actor play the rest of the action with slurred speech and one side of his body paralysed.
    It was grotesque, it ran counter to Shakespeare’s text at almost every point, but at least the director stuck to his guns and saw it through.
    And Charles Paris hadn’t done too badly out of it. From press notices of universal condemnation, he, by the good fortune of having one of the smallest parts (that of the Shipmaster) had culled the following review:
    â€˜Charles Paris was easily the most effective performer on the stage, chiefly because we saw least of him.’
    It was one of those notices which, if you snip off the second half of the sentence, looks very good in a scrap-book.
    Gavin Scholes concluded his exposition of the way he saw Macbeth and announced, ‘Well, now I think we’d better get straight on with the reading, don’t you?’
    â€˜Surely we’re going to discuss the interpretation first?’ Needless to say, this bewildered objection came from Felicia Chatterton.
    â€˜No, no, I’d rather come to it fresh.’
    â€˜Oh.’ This clearly didn’t sound a very good idea to her, but she suppressed further objections.
    â€˜Erm . . . now, inevitably, with such a big cast we’re going to be into a bit of doubling. Now I’ve cleared extra parts with some of you . . .’
    Charles and John B. Murgatroyd chuckled knowingly.
    â€˜Some parts I’m cutting. For instance, I’ve divided Angus’s lines up between Lennox, Ross and Mentieth . . .’
    â€˜Gosh,’ whispered John B. to Charles in a voice that had overtones of Felicia Chatterton. ‘That could be tricky. I mean, I’ll have to
talk
Lennox and
think
Angus.’
    â€˜Then the Fourth Murderer,’ Gavin went on, ‘I’ve assimilated into the other three, and of course I’ve cut Hecate –’
    â€˜Have you?’ asked Felicia Chatterton, shocked.
    â€˜Yes. Well, everyone cuts Hecate.’
    â€˜The recent R.S.C. production didn’t.’
    â€˜No, well, I mean everyone in the real world –’ He thought better of finishing his sentence and said hastily, ‘Anyway, I’ve cut her.’
    â€˜But surely that removes any occult frame of reference for the Weird Sisters?’
    â€˜Well, yes, I suppose it . . .’ Gavin looked totally nonplussed. ‘Yes, well, I’m afraid we’re just going to have to live with that,’ he concluded firmly.
    â€˜Hmm. Well, if you don’t feel you’re short-changing the audience . . .’
    â€˜No, I don’t. Now a few more doublings. Charles, I know you’re already giving us your Bleeding Sergeant and your Drunken Porter . . . would you mind adding a couple more snippets . . .?’
    â€˜No problem. The more the merrier.’
    â€˜Right. Well, if you could do the Old Man who talks to Ross . . .?’
    â€˜Sure.’
    â€˜And the Third Murderer . . .’
    â€˜Fine.’
    â€˜Um, and the English Doctor . . . you know, the one who comes in and talks about Edward the Confessor . . .?’
    â€˜Okay.’
    â€˜Oh, aren’t you going to cut that bit?’ asked Felicia Chatterton.
    â€˜No.’