IT has long been referred to as “the Scottish play” by superstitious actors for fear the mere mention of its name will curse their show.
Now award-winning comic Bruce Fummey has launched a bid to recast Shakespeare’s Macbeth as “the English play”due to its “distortion” of Scots history.
The former Scottish Comedian of the Year argues that Macbeth was a “popular and peaceful” monarch whose defeat by Malcolm III and his English army began the “Anglicisation” of the country.
Fummey’s arguments can heard in his new show, Macbeth … Without the Shakespeare Bollocks, which debuts at this year’s Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
He said: “When James VI became King of England in 1603, he was beset by plotting against him. When collecting his new bride from Denmark, ships were lost in a storm. Blaming this on witchcraft, James initiated witch-hunts where many women were executed.
“It’s no surprise that a playwright looking to gain funding wrote a story pointing to the evils of witches and the dangers of plots against the rightful English king.
“Macbeth was written in England, by England’s great playwright to curry favour with the new English king, whose Anglicising ancestor invaded with an English army to overthrow Macbeth – and yet we call it the Scottish Play.”
Fummey, a former teacher from Perthshire, aims to attract 100,000 signatures on a parliamentary petition to secure a debate.
He has started a Facebook page entitled Campaign To Rename Macbeth ‘The English Play’ and is calling on “teachers, actors, journalists” and “everyone who cares for accurate reporting to join the campaign”.
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