CBC TIMES

RADIO & TV PROGRAMS FOR APRIL 21 – 27, 1962

Shakespeares’s MACBETH

A production used earlier on the National Schools Telecasts is presented in edited form on Festival April 23

A PERFORMANCE of Shakespeare's Macbeth will be presented in the Festival series on Monday night, April 23. Originally produced by Paul Almond as a five-part series for the CBC's school broadcasts department last fall, it has been edited to fit Festival's 90-minute format. Almond will introduce the play, and during intermission will appear on camera to talk informally about his production, which is handsomely mounted with sets by Rudi Dom and costumes by Horst Dantz.

            In the title role is British stage, screen and TV actor Sean Connery, making his first North American appearance. Australian actress Zoe Caldwell, who plays Lady Macbeth, appeared at Ontario's Stratford Festival last summer, and recently in Festival productions of Shaw's "Apple Cart" and Fry's "The Lady's Not For Burning." Now she's touring Australia in a production of Shaw's "Saint Joan."

            The cast also includes Powys Thomas as Duncan; William Needles as Banquo; Ted Follows as Macduff; Sharon Acker as Lady Macduff; Eric Christmas as the Porter; Max Helpmann as Ross; Gillie Fen- wick as Angus; Bernard Behrens as Lennox; Robin Gammell as Malcolm; Raymond Bellew as Donalbain; Hedley Mattingly as the Doctor; Victoria Mitchell as the Gentlewoman and the First Witch; Natalia Butko and Jacqueline Ivings as Second and Third Witches; Larry Zahab as Seyton; Peter Needham and Jay Shannon as First and Second Murderers; Rex Hagon as Fleance; and Peter Tully as MacdufFs son.

            When Paul Almond visited England last summer he saw Sean Connery on BBC-TV, was greatly impressed, and later offered him the title role in Macbeth. Connery was delighted, for, although he is much in demand in Britain as stage, film and TV actor, he had done little Shakespeare, except for the role of Hotspur in a TV production of Henry VI. And he was anxious to see something of the source of the many CBC-TV dramas which have been receiving critical acclaim in British TV showings. Unfortunately, he says, Macbeth kept him so busy- he plunged into rehearsals immediately on arriving in Toronto-that he had little opportunity to see much outside the studio. "Next time," he says, "I’ll arrive with a few days to spare."

            Connery was born in Edinburgh. He joined the Royal Navy at 16. Before making his professional acting debut in the road production of a musical starring Anna Neagle, he was an art college student, a truck driver, a life guard, a newspaper man, and waiter ill an English pub.

            When the musical ended its tour he headed for London, found a job as a sailor in the West End production of South Pacific, played a couple of bit parts just before the London run ended, and had a supporting role in the road company. Then he returned to London. The enthusiastic reviews he got after his appearance on BBC- TV as the boxer in Rod Sterling's Requiem for a Heavyweight (directed by former CBC producer Alvin Rakoff) started his career on the upgrade, and he became so busy as an actor that he formed a company, Sean Connery Ltd., to handle his business affairs, with his Irish father as director and his Scottish mother as secretary.

            Connery has appeared in several films, including Another Time, Another Place with Lana Turner, The Frightened City with John Gregson and an RAF comedy On the Fiddle (soon to be released in Canada), and he will appear with several internationally- known stars in the new Darryl Zanuck film The Longest Day.

            An American TV producer invited Connery to the States to play in a drama series, but he joined a stage company in Oxford instead. One of his most successful roles was as Alexander the Great in a BBC-TV production of Terence Ratigan's Adventure Story.