Storytime: Macbeth

Chapter 8: Act 4

Act 4

"Have you checked the next bit?" Jamie asked.

"We're going to need Banquo's ghost again," Samantha warned him, and handed over the familiar white sheet. "Give me the book and I'll get things going while you're changing."

[The palace at Forres. Sam Tyler is standing on the battlements while the camera swoops around him.]

Sam Tyler (vo) :
My name is Sam Tyler. I keep getting killed, and each time I wake up in the past. Am I mad? In a coma? Or somehow still walking around after I've died?

[David Bowie's "Dead Man Walking" (transcribed for bagpipes) plays, over a montage of shots of Sam talking to people in various parts of the castle, giving Macbeth and his wife suspicious looks, and trying to perform a forensic investigation of the place where Banquo was killed. As the song comes to an end, Sam is seen in a disused storeroom, scratching his notes on the floor with a knife. Nyssa is at the door, dressed as a Scots peasant girl and looking at him with an "I pity the crackpot" sort of expression.]

Sam Tyler :
No witnesses. No bloodstained clothing. No fingerprints. No tyre marks. No psychological profiling. No DNA matching. No CCTV footage. How are you supposed to prove anything in this time?

Nyssa [affecting a Scots accent, which she does very badly] :
I'm very sorry I couldnae be any more help to ye, master.

Sam Tyler :
I mean, when Banquo was found murdered, I was on the scene straight away, and I still couldn't make out what happened. It's as if one of these mediaeval thugs somehow managed to pinpoint and destroy every last bit of evidence.

[Behind him, Nyssa smiles quietly to herself.]

Sam Tyler :
Oh yes, everyone says Macbeth is as mad as a lorryload of ferrets, but that isn't going to stand up in court. And if I try to use any twentieth-century detective techniques I'll probably be burned as a witch.

Nyssa :
I could have—

Sam Tyler :
No, that's all right. It isn't your fault. Sorry I dragged you into all this, but I had to tell someone, and you've got a kind face. I know you don't believe half of what I'm saying. Honestly, I really do come from a place where there are wonders you couldn't begin to imagine, and I've got to face the possibility that I'll never get home.

[Nyssa's expression flickers slightly, but she keeps up the 'naïve peasant girl' act.]

Nyssa :
Indeed, master, tae be sure ye ken well how tae turn the heid of a simple
crofter's daughter.

Sam Tyler :
Oh, dear. Cai- Cay-

Nyssa :
Caoimhe.

Sam Tyler :
Keavy, listen to me. I can't let anyone get too close to me. Back where I come from, there's...

Nyssa :
Ye mean ye've already got a wife at home? Ach, all ye men are alike. [She wipes away an imaginary tear.]

Sam Tyler :
I didn't mean... Look, you'd better get back home before your family miss
you.

Nyssa :
Aye, master. [She adds, sotto voce, in her normal accent:] And how I stopped myself depolarising every protein in your body I shall never know.

Sam Tyler :
What?

Nyssa [fake Scots again] :
Nothing, master.