The Essay: Reading the First Folio

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The Essay: Reading the First Folio: Sir David Hare on Macbeth

Sir David Hare on Macbeth

Reading the First Folio

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Reading the First Folio, Sir David Hare on Macbeth

Playwright David Hare chooses Macbeth's imagining of old age from Act 5, Scene 3.

Playwright, screenwriter and director David Hare tells us why he is moved by Macbeth's imagining of old age - 'honour, love, obedience' - from Act 5, Scene 3 of the play.

400 years after the publication of William Shakespeare's First Folio, five writers are each asked to pick a speech from one of the Folio's plays, tell it what they think it means, and what it means to them. This time, award-winning playwright, screenwriter and director David Hare chooses a speech by Macbeth in Act 5, Scene 3 of the play.

David tells us how Shakespeare perfected his gift for the lone monologue to help reveal what is going on inside a character's head. In Act 5, Scene 3 of Macbeth, the lead character waits for news of an English army which has been assembled in an attempt to destroy him. As he waits, he gives a speech in which he thinks about what life will be like if he makes it to old age. It's a speech which moves David. He ponders what makes the play so hard to perform, in an essay which takes us from Quentin Tarantino to Philip Larkin.

Produced by Camellia Sinclair for BBC Audio in Bristol
Mixed by Suzy Robins

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Essays marking the 400th anniversary of the printing of Shakespeare's First Folio in 1623.

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