Macbeth

Shakespeare's darkest and shortest tragedy — ambition, prophecy and blood.

Returning victorious from battle, the Scottish general Macbeth meets three witches on a blasted heath who greet him as king hereafter. The prophecy takes root; his wife fans it; and a single murder in the night sets off a chain of killing that neither of them can stop.

Macbeth is Shakespeare at his most compressed and most frightening — a study of how quickly a good man's imagination can be turned against him, and of a marriage destroyed from the inside. From is this a dagger which I see before me to out, damned spot and tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow, its language is burned into English itself.

Ideal for

• School and university syllabus reading
• A first Shakespeare — short, fast and gripping
• Theatre-goers preparing for a production