Road to Dunsinane, The

Synopsis: Radio work written by Michael Innes that speculates in dramatic form the historical circumstances that might have induced Shakespeare to write Macbeth. The first part of the programme presents the historical Macbeth who visits Rome in order to obtain an interview with Pope Leo IX. The second part focuses on ‘The Poet’s Mind’. According to Radio Times programme notes, "Innes supposes that in 1599 Shakespeare was in Edinburgh with Laurence Fletcher’s company; that he there met William Drummond of Hawthornden, a precociously learned child of fourteen; and that since the Kirk sessions had banned Romeo and Juliet a new play had to be written at short notice" (10 November 1950, p. 41). Scenes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth are played by Oliver Burt and Grizelda Hervey, passages from Holinshed’s Chronicles are read by Howieson Cuff and Carleton Hobbs reads the author’s commentary.
Language: English
Country: Great Britain
Medium: Radio
Transmission details: 15 Nov 1950 at 20:00 (Channel: BBC Third Programme)
Duration: 75 mins
Availability: No archive copy found

Notes: The part of the young laird of Hawthornden was played by fourteen-year-old Ian Gloag, a pupil at the Herriot Hospital, Edinburgh.

A BBC recording.
History: Heppenstall’s radio take on Macbeth is a successor to his 1948 programme on Hamlet, THE HAWK AND THE HANDSAW (see separate entry). Broadcast repeated on 17/11/1950 and 09/12/1950.

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Frederick Valk	King Macbeth (Macbeth)
Alan Wheatley	Shakespeare, William
Bryan Powley
Denise Bryer
Dorothy Smith
Grizelda Hervey
Helena Gloag
Ian Gloag	William Drummond, laird of Hawthornden
J. Hubert Leslie	Pope Leo IX
Jeremy Spenser	Robin Drew
Joan Matheson
Malcolm Hayes
Oliver Burt
Richard Williams
Robert Marsden	Laurence Fletcher
Ronald Sidney
Stanley Groome