ABSTRACT
Macbeth seems to have lingered in Ellen’s mind as a critical point in the spiral of success at the Lyceum. She wrote: ‘Perhaps Henry Irving and I might have gone on with Shakespeare to the end of the chapter if he had not been in such a hurry to produce Macbeth.’ When Irving had played the part with the Batemans his notices had not been good, although the critics had not been entirely unsympathetic to his new reading of the part. But Irving felt that now, with experience and greater knowledge of his art, he could carry the play.
