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The Stanley Baxter Playhouse

Comedy: Sitcoms

Series of comic plays starring Stanley Baxter

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The Stanley Baxter Playhouse: Series 4

Catherine Bailey

The Stanley Baxter Playhouse: Series 4: Episode 1: The Porter's Story

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Episode 1

Episode 1: The Porter's Story

Series 4

The Porter's Story

BBC Radio 4 - The Stanley Baxter Playhouse, Series 4, The Porter's Story

By Rona Munro. A comic retelling of events at Dunsinane, when Macbeth's porter took charge

By Rona Munro. A comic retelling of events at Dunsinane Castle when Macbeth's porter took charge. Stanley Baxter plays the porter who saved a king.

Written by Rona Munro.

In this first play in Series 4 of The Stanley Baxter Playhouse fellow Scots leading actors Gordon Kennedy, Stuart McQuarrie and Siobhan Redmond join Stanley in a comedy based on Shakespeare's Scottish play, where the porter becomes the hero and invites us to hear his version of the events that led up to the murder of King Duncan; and what just might have happened after it. 

We will discover that it was all really Lady Macbeth's fault, for marrying Macbeth and spoiling the porter's long term plans to groom his coarse and unschooled master to be a suave, smooth operator with fine manners and a statesman like approach to politics. His plans are foiled in a series of mishaps which are hilarious and very cunning.

Cast:
Porter ..... Stanley Baxter
Macbeth ...... Gordon Kennedy
Lady Macbeth ...... Siobhan Redmond
Duncan/Nobleman ...... Stuart McQuarrie

Rona Munro is one of Scotland's most highly regarded playwrights, with award winning films [Ken Loach's Lady Bird Lady Bird] and television dramas [Rehab] and her Edinburgh International Festival success The Last Witch to her credit. She is passionate about history and comedy, and The Porter's Story celebrates both of these; a delightful tongue in cheek exposition of events from Scottish history which are still shrouded in mystery; Shakespeare certainly took liberties in his version. 

Siobhan Redmond starred in the RSC production of a new play Dunsinane by David Greig, where she played Lady Macbeth. Gordon Kennedy will be known to many for his role as Little John in the BBC TV series Robin Hood.


Producer: Marilyn Imrie
A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4.

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