A train threads its way through the darkening suburbs of Liverpool as bright orange flames leap up from people's gardens. It's Bonfire Night, and my fellow drama students and I are going to see Macbeth at the Royal Court Theatre. I don't remember the details of our conversation exactly, but there was some excited chatter about the prospect of seeing Pete Postlethwaite in the lead role. The memories I have of that evening are blurry at best, hardly surprising when you consider that it was more than twenty-five years ago. For anyone not familiar with English customs, Bonfire Night takes place annually on the fifth of November and commemorates the failed plot to destroy the Houses of Parliament in 1605. It is believed that William Shakespeare's play Macbeth was performed for the first time in 1606, so it's quite possible that the famous playwright was working on it when Guy Fawkes, a chief conspirator in the Gunpowder Plot, was discovered in a cellar underneath Parli
The words of an English language teacher & proofreader