From: richard.burbage@globe.com
To: will.shakespeare@stratford.com
Subject: The Three Witches
Hi Will
Thanks for changing the title of Two Dudes of Verona. It wasn’t right, like Romeo and Cleopatra and The Merry Wives of Wimbledon. Thanks, but I’m not fussed about folio credits.
I’ll cut to the codpiece: The Three Witches. It’s on-the-nose topical and you know I yield to no one with my republican credentials but, unless I’ve got lost in the soliloquys, this is about regicide, right? Does this speak to the zeitgeist, Will? And does ‘eye of newt’ fit today’s vegan agenda?
The best bit’s that ‘out damn blot’ speech. It sent a tingle down my doublet to think we could do some product placement: a lye manufacturer or in-home manicurist. Phrase it right and I’ll cut you in on the royalties. Maybe link it with the ‘three female practitioners of alternative medicine’ in the hot-tub scene, like ‘tofu-alternative owlet’s wing, non-bio wool of bat, and a pinch of magic ingredient.’ But put it in your own words. Anne could do a demo at half-time. It’d make a change from flogging ice-creams and capon legs.
Let me know. And call the bloody thing Macbeth, for God’s sake.
Dick
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Biography: Chris Cottom lives in Macclesfield, UK. His stories appear, or are forthcoming, in Agape Review, Apricot Press, Bournemouth Writing Prize, Cranked Anvil, Fictionette, FlashFlood, Free Flash Fiction, Hysteria, On The Premises, One Wild Ride, Oxford Flash Fiction, Parracombe Prize, Retreat West, Shooter Flash, Story Nook, Streetcake, The Centifictionist, and others. Twitter: @chris_cottom1
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