Note: Macbeth's Disciple has been classified by the British Board of Film Classification as a 12A film. It may be unsuitable for children under 12 years of age. Children under 12 must be accompanied by an adult.

MACBETH’S DISCIPLE was conceived to open young people’s imagination through exploration of the plays’ text and through the creation of invented characters alongside Shakespeare's original cast.  The invented cast comprises; the hero CORMAC, his wife LILEAS, daughter ANNA and son DOUGLAS. This family together with their Viking servant, THOROLD, live and work for MACBETH at his hill fort in eleventh century Scotland.

The result is a piece of action, whose real time is a number of days but takes place between just two lines of Shakespeare’s play near the end of  Act three- scene four.  What did happen to Fleance? We follow his story.

“We hope, this story of MACBETH’S DISCIPLE will show young people how to better understand, themes, imagery and text on the page and in performance and hopefully they will be inspired to explore all this more deeply by applying their own imagination to Shakespeare's text in similar ways”.

So, magic, mystery and mayhem!

Shot on HD, MACBETH’S DISCIPLE is twenty two minutes long.  It combines the story of a real King of Scotland who lived a thousand years ago with state of the art CGI animation. The combination of great live acting, excellent CGI and thrilling combat sequences drew considerable applause when an excerpt was shown by the Director of Photography, Paul Wheeler, in his lecture at the Edinburgh International Film Festival.

What is “authentic”?

In our film, we have tried to re-create an authentic eleventh century setting. Shakespeare may well have known a great deal of Dark Age history and has alluded to those mythological beliefs of the time. He tells us during the Malcolm/Macduff scene (4.2) that the English king Edward was on the throne so he clearly knew that at the time of his Macbeth, lived Edward the Confessor, king of England.

Shakespeare, and many actors, directors, producers and audiences since, possibly visualised Macbeth in some kind of romanticised early English setting, almost like a Hollywood swashbuckler.
For four centuries, Macbeth has more often been portrayed in contemporary dress than period dress: Shakespeare’s troupe probably wore doublet and hose, while two hundred years later, Garrick wore a dress coat and knee breeches, and nowadays, Macbeth is likely to wear a suit, a leather jacket or army camouflages.

Macbeth's Disciple is set in a world more like what we now know of Scotland a thousand years ago.  Visually and aurally, we consciously strive to emphasise the things that make Scotland unique and different; audiences who expect to see a standard romanticised mediaeval costume drama will be surprised by the unusual architecture, the décor, the clothing, the hairstyles, the colours, and even the landscape. 

This setting makes Macbeth's Disciple unique and exciting. 

The location

In the eleventh century, pre the Norman invasion, the world was built of wooden buildings.
We were lucky to find a reconstructed village of a similar time period to crannogs of Scotland. And it came with a re-enactment society who supplied us with many extras, props and lots of help.
www.regia.org

The beautiful scenic shots of Scotland were filmed for us by Mont Films who are based in the Highlands of Scotland. www.montfilms.com

Additional Resources

For Teacher notes including step by step teacher plan or Student notes including extensive Macbeth Analysis. Please send an email to info@spearean.co.uk

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