A twist on Macbeth's three witches at the Chichester Fringe

A very different take on the three witches from Macbeth is heading to the Chichester Fringe this summer.

Transcript

00:00Good morning. My name is Phil Hewitt, Group Arts Editor at Sussex Newspapers. Lovely this

00:06morning to speak to Iona Rose in Central Scotland. Now, you were at Chichester, the University of

00:12Chichester, doing musical theatre, brackets music, and you are hoping to come back. Well,

00:17you will come back this summer with a special production for the Chichester Fringe. It's called

00:21Three Witches Brew, and you've got a development grant from the Fringe to do that.

00:26Tell me about it. What's Three Witches Brew all about? The clue's in the title, isn't it?

00:32It is, yes. So the premise is that the Three Witches of Macbeth fame come to Lady Macbeth's aid.

00:44She asks them to give this prophecy to her husband, and they're attempting to do that and to make it

00:52seem as real as possible, while also being completely drunk because they've been on a

00:56hen do. And as you can imagine, it's very chaotic. There's going to be a lot of sort of, you know,

01:04glow sticks and falling over and potentially some more...

01:07Very different context to this one then, isn't it?

01:10Yes, it's a behind the scenes you never thought you'd see.

01:13So we're not really talking the tragedy of Macbeth anymore, are we then?

01:17No. Well, I do think particularly that scene it is at the beginning, sort of before everything

01:24goes tragic. And my favourite thing about Lady Macbeth and this idea that she's putting these

01:29poems in place is that the more powerful she is and the more she's done to get herself to this place,

01:36the more tragic her downfall is.

01:38It sounds great. And you've got the grant, which enables you to come back to Chichester,

01:44where you were at university. And you were just saying what a lovely time you had in Chichester.

01:49Why was it so good, from your point of view?

01:52Well, I mean, just studying musical theatre for me was an absolute dream. And getting to spend so many

02:00hours, you know, people putting up with my singing and everything. And as I was saying to you before,

02:06I fell in love with comedy there. So that's really special to be bringing back a comedic piece and

02:14yeah, to be showing that lovely historic town and slightly different history.

02:19Fantastic. And if all goes well, we get it first in Chichester,

02:24and then this goes off to the Edinburgh Fringe, which will be very exciting.

02:28Yes, that's the plan. So I'm relying on Chichester to, you know, give me lots of confidence. And

02:36I really do think it's going to be a very exciting thing to do.

02:38Fantastic. And you are one of the witches.

02:43I am. Yes.

02:44And the three different characters, which one are you then?

02:47Well, I am. This is going to sound silly without a bit of context, but I am the dumb one.

02:58So we have these three characters that are the sort of stereotypical, the boss who's in charge,

03:04who's organised, and the mischievous one who's trying to make things go wrong and, you know,

03:11drop cauldrons on other people's feet. And the dumb one who's really trying to be helpful,

03:18um, but is not necessarily very successful. And that's me.

03:22And if you get cast as a dumb one, there's only one person you can blame, isn't there really?

03:26There really is. I can't say I didn't do it to myself.

03:31Fantastic. Well, lovely to speak to you. Good luck with it all. Exciting that we'll get it in Chichester.

03:37And let's say that's a great future. Thank you very much.

03:41Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. Thank you.