Andy Griffiths | BOOKS | Just Macbeth!

Just Macbeth!

Play, 2009 (The Just! series)

Just Macbeth! is the seventh book in the Just! series. In 2005 the Bell Shakespeare Company commissioned Andy to write a play that would help introduce young audiences to the works of William Shakespeare and the pleasures of live theatre. Along with co-writer, Jill Griffiths, he came up with Just Macbeth!, which blends the characters from the Just! series with the story and characters from Macbeth. The book Just Macbeth! is a slightly revised version of the play (illustrated by Terry Denton).

Is this the right book for you?

Take the MACBETH TEST and find out.

Do you love stories about witches, ghosts, time travel, angry garden gnomes and ruthless tyrants?
Do you ever wish that you could be the boss of everyone and everything?
Do you think people who are really bad at karaoke deserve to die?
Do you like the idea of being able to impress people with your knowledge of one of Shakespeare's most famous plays?
Do you giggle when you hear – or read – the word 'bosom'?

SCORE: One point for each 'yes' answer.

3-5 You are a ruthless tyrant. You are also very immature. You will love this book.
1-2 You are either a ruthless tyrant or simply very immature. You will love this book.
0 You are an immature ruthless tyrant and you don't even know it! You will love this book.

THE STORY
Andy, Lisa and Danny are rehearsing the witches' scene from Shakespeare's Macbeth, which they will be performing for their English class. They make a disgusting potion and then dare each other to drink it. After doing so, they find themselves magically transported back into the battle scene in Act 1, and Andy, taken as Macbeth by the three witches, is told of his fate ('Thou shalt be king hereafter'). From then on the play follows the plot of Macbeth, with Andy, Lisa and Danny taking the roles of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and Banquo. They speak to each other as if they were in the 21st century, but sometimes lapse into Shakespearian language, much to their own confusion at times.

PERFORMANCE HISTORY
The play was first performed at the Arts Centre in Melbourne in September 2008. It then went on to a season in Sydney, had a return sellout season in Sydney at the Opera House in 2010, followed by an extremely well-received season at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Scotland, where it received 5-star reviews from both The Scotsman and The Herald and won a Herald Angel award.

References to other Just! books in Just Macbeth!
Just Annoying!
Andy's hatred of garden gnomes ('Wish you weren't here')

Just Stupid!
Andy's bravery in extinguishing a fire in a shopping centre ('Busting'); Andy's rapid journey downhill in a pram ('Runaway Pram); Andy's knowledge of food fights ('Food Fight'); Andy's immature habit of stuffing his mouth full of marshmallows ('Chubby Bubbies')

Just Crazy!
Andy's inability to remove a Band-Aid ('Band-Aid'); Andy's balloon-powered flight ('A Crazy, Bad, Dumb, Bad, Bad, Dumb, Crazy, Bad Idea'); a mashing and pulverising machine ('Kittens, Puppies and Ponies')

Just Disgusting!
Andy's hatred of brussel sprouts ('Brussel Sprouts'); the movie 'Axe-Wielding, Blood-Sucking Freaks' ('Go to Bed'); Andy's bath-time experiences ('Two Brown Blobs'); Andy and Jen's habit of telling each other to shut up ('Shut up!')

Just Shocking!
Girl germs ('101 Dangerous Things')

Reviews

This is the story of three friends who make a magic potion that sends them back into time. There they meet three witches that confuse their identity and there does not seem to be anything they can do about that. There are parts that are really funny and made me smile a lot. There are a lot of murders, though, and lots of wizz fizz jokes. I love wizz fizz and so must Andy Griffiths. The illustrations by Terry are very good and make the story even weirder. Even C3PO and R2D2 are mixed up with it all. There is a little picture of this guy called William Shakespeare on pretty much every page. He lets you know how many pages you have read. I thought this was great and read it very quickly. If so many people hadn't died I would have given it ten out of ten, but because of the deaths it loses a point.
Andras Kerekes, aged 8, Readings Bookshop July guide

By plonking Andy, Danny and Lisa from his bestselling Just series smack bang into the middle of Macbeth, Andy Griffiths has turned tragedy into comedy. A lot of characters die, but there are also a lot of jokes. This is very smart writing that respects the original. Designed to introduce children to Shakespeare's work, it is almost guaranteed to make them appreciate it.
Adults can have fun seeing how Griffiths has adapted the Scottish play. There are whole chunks of original dialogue sitting next to 21st–century colloquial language. “My lord, get a grip,” Lady Macbeth, aka Lisa “the most beautiful girl in the school”, tells Andy/Macbeth. The “get a grip” also references the more typical Griffiths humour – Macbeth uses the squirrel grip to great effect in battle. There aren't as many bum jokes as one might expect – in fact, illustrator Terry Denton has to insert a gratuitous one.
Denton's cartoons are occasionally helpfully explanatory, often tangential, but always humorous. Shakespeare himself tells us the page numbers, indignant at his limited role. Griffiths first wrote Just Macbeth! as a play for the Bell Shakespeare company to great acclaim. The book version will be just as successful.
The Age

Andy Griffiths is not quite the first writer I would have thought of to write a parody of Macbeth but, hold onto your kilt, as he and his illustrator, Terry Denton, create an entertaining, easy to read commentary of the play for younger readers.
     Homework for Andy, Danny and Lisa, when their class is studying Macbeth, is to make the witches' brew in Mum's blender. In goes eye of newt, toe of frog, tongue of dog and so on, each causing a spate of discussion about what it all means, along with incidental chat about the background of the play and its history. But when they drink the resultant mix, they are hurled back into the battle scene in Act 1, and Andy, taken as Macbeth by the three witches, is told of his fate.
     From then on the play follows the Shakespearian original, Andy, Lisa and Danny taking the roles of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and Banquo, speaking to each other as if they were in the 21st century, but sometimes lapsing into Shakespearian language to further the plot. It works very well, and for students trying to make sense of the play, this reworking adds meaning and substance to the words which otherwise may have eluded them.
     I loved coming across formal lines taken from the play in the middle of Andy's inane chatter, and Denton's drawings along the side of the page give an extra depth of explanation to the story and some of the things which are unknown to today's audience. Some of the scenes, for example, the murder of Duncan, are wholly graphic, while several scenes are almost completely told in Shakespearian language. Each of the 20 chapter headings is a quote from the play, and a list of the characters at the front will help the reader. The format, along with stage directions, makes it easy to use in the classroom, and I can imagine students having great fun with it.
     Produced with the auspices of the famed Bell Shakespeare Company, Just Macbeth! was first performed in 2008 in Victoria. See: bellshakespeare.com.au
Fran Knight, Magpies

It is a common enough experience for children who are introduced to Shakespeare's plays too early to find the language daunting.
     The plots, one accessed, are timeless enough. Revenge, greed, unfaithfulness, obduracy and guilt are common concerns of the Bard.
     Books like Leon Garfield's Shakespeare's Stories were an attempt to distil the plot lines of Shakespeare into prose narratives.
     Earlier still, there was Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. Then just last year, the Royal Shakespeare Company produced the boxed Shakespeare: The Life, the Works, the Treasures.
     While there is much to commend these books, a new take on Macbeth is likely to bridge the divide between Shakespeare's language and children.
     The hugely popular team of Andy Griffiths and Terry Denton have given Macbeth a makeover.
     Their new book, Just Macbeth!, capitalises on the success of the Griffiths and Denton Just series. Even so, coming off an already established readership, it took John Bell of the Bell Shakespeare Company to commission Griffiths and co-writer, Jill Griffiths, to adapt Macbeth for a younger audience.
     The result is a book that is sassy, snappy and successfully brings the Bard alive. An obvious question is whether an adaptation like this stays true to the source. It does.
     What has been shifted is the way children get into the play. The essential ideas are not compromised but children are welcomed into Elizabethan language and the history of Macbeth in a deft way.
     This is achieved by Griffiths and his 'girlfriend' Lisa meeting in his house – in the kitchen no less.
     They are in front of a food processor and immediately we are introduced to the famous incantation replete with a toad and eye of newt. This happens naturally and enhances the animation of the play in a visual way.
     Add to this the sidebars to the pages offered by Denton's quirky and diverting drawings. The emphasis is on fun and entertainment.
     But I hear some readers saying Macbeth is a pretty bloody affair. True enough. Still, what Griffiths and Denton have done is not so much play down the violence but use it as a teaching tool.
     Instead of the narrative being blood-soaked, there are momentary pauses whilst Denton's drawings ask readers as to whether they know what the word 'prate' means for example.
     It is possible that some teachers and parents may find the association of the drawings and text to be too graphic. Remember the kerfuffle that Griffiths encountered with The Bad Book?
     The violence in this vivid play is handled well. This is achieved by Andy and Lisa entering the play in a clever role switch. In fact, the list of characters includes some of Andy's 'friends' here.
     The benefits of this book are many. Quite apart from making Shakespeare reader friendly, the play is treated with integrity in this adaptation. So how can it be used in the classroom?
     The appeal of Griffiths and Denton to upper primary and lower secondary age children is well established.
     The design of the book with the eye-catching cover ensures that readers will find it has a familiar Griffiths and Denton feel. There is also a comic book appearance at times as well.
     What this does is break down the formality of the language into entry points for studying not only what is going on but what is being said.
     While the representation of the play in Griffiths' inimitable upbeat chatty style is absorbing and engaging, Denton's illustrations fulfil a strategic role.
     This is almost a concordance or at least a dictionary of sorts where specific Elizabethan terms are explained. This is not always overly serious as terms such as 'Haggis Hurlers' enter the book. Still, children will glean much factual knowledge.
     The scope for additional work on Shakespeare is considerable. The vitality of the Griffiths' adaptation lends itself to ready classroom performance.
     The story of Macbeth is in neat scenes or chapters and these can be easily used in drama context.
     The extension activities such as writing in a sonnet form, researching Shakespeare's life, maybe a look at the Globe theatre or better still, the making of one, gives plenty for children to associate with the play, let alone the specific setting of Macbeth.
     The Griffiths approach, backed by the Bell Shakespeare Company, has already resulted in a performance of Just Macbeth! in Melbourne and Sydney last year.
     This is Shakespeare for children in the first instance, but also a ticket to Shakespeare for a lifetime.
Christopher Bantick, Hobart Mercury

They're back. The duo dedicated to ending boring reading for young people. It's the sort of enterprise that could go so, so wrong. Is it wise for Australia's most popular writer for young people (and his tireless illustrator), famous for physical comedy and low-brow humour, to take on the Bard? Macbeth – the story of a man goaded by pride and superstition to become king by murder most foul. Are they nuts?
     The play Just Macbeth! took three years to create and was workshopped and developed for the stage with editor Jill Griffiths (Andy's partner) and director Wayne Harrison for the Bell Shakespeare Company. But with the book Griffiths and Denton are on their own: just the words, just the pictures. Once again, they show how badly underestimated they are by some people. Just Macbeth! respects the spirit and often the text of the Bard – on the back of the familiar characters Andy, Danny and Lisa. They are tough enough to take all the twists and improbable turns that are heaped upon them in the plot and in the process of adaptation. The result is a robust, rigorous and downright funny adaptation of Shakespeare's tragedy.
     The text presents as a play script rather than prose, which is not any great hurdle to the reader. The text also displays a level of irony and self-awareness that really adds to the reading.
     One of the biggest problems Griffiths and Denton would have faced was how to deal with all that murder and violence. It's a kid's book, yes? (They've already been rapped over the knuckles for The Bad Book.) Well, they don't shirk it, they show it. The scene of Macbeth murdering Duncan is done with comic-book pictures and typical humour: a legless Shakespeare observes from the bottom of the page, 'Murder most foul' – and on the next page he says, 'Chicken legs most fowl'. Denton's contribution can't be underestimated. Between them, Griffiths and Denton have created a new kind of book, one where text and illustration fuse to create a whole new thing – not a graphic novel, a comic or a picture book. It's the kind of book others would love to emulate, if only they had the raw materials or the energy. Andy Griffiths has said that it is not a kid's job to read his books – it's his job to interest the kid in reading them. He does it again, even with Shakespeare. Resistance is useless.
Mike Shuttleworth, Centre for Youth Literature Newsletter, July 2009