McDuff

[DGR]

Does anyone know the origin of the saying " Lead on McDuff " ?

[kettledrum]

It's a misquotation from Shakespeare's Macbeth Act V sc 8 -"Lay on, Macduff!" - meaning "come and attack me."

In your question it means 'go ahead', / 'please go first'.

[DGR]

That makes perfect sense. Many thanks - it's been niggling me, on and off, for some time.

[Nether Edge]

Gasp- actors don't call it "Macbeth" but, rather, just "The Scotish Play". That supposedly avoids bad luck. Didn't do King McB much good, did it?

[n1kon83]

Nether Edge::
Though you are right in making the point that it should only be known as "The Scottish Play", this is only true when it is being performed on stage or if it's being talked about in a theatre.
The superstition comes from actors / actreses having things happening to them when they were either performing the play or if they were talking about it in the theatre.

[DGR]

Now, where did that superstition originate? Was there a performance that went horribly wrong? Can't think of another play whose title has the same effect. Something else to niggle!

[DGR]

n1kon83
we crossed in the post!

[Quizmonster]

Legend has it that the boy who played Lady Macbeth died backstage during the play's very first performance. It is also claimed that the ingredients of the famous witches' spell is an actual word-for-word copy of a real spell! Black magic practitioners of the time were not best pleased and they put the hex on the play which has haunted it ever since.
In 1849, three New York theatres were simultaneously putting on performances of the play. One star got friends to disrupt the performance in one of the other theatres. This turned into a riot in which over 30 people were killed. During an Old Vic company tour with the play, among the cast there were an attempted suicide, an electrocution, a gouged eye and an accidental stabbing. In 1947, one actor playing the lead - who had laughed at the supposed curse - was stabbed during a fight scene and subsequently died of his wound; his child died and his widow went mad. In the 1960s, one Stratford actor involved in the play was stabbed and the company manager was strangled. Even as recently as the mid-90s the director of the play in Melbourne - who had also laughed at the curse - lost two of the actors to early deaths.
That's probably enough to explain actors' reluctance to speak the word, but if you click here a link will take you to a web-page with further information.

[DGR]

Many thanks. With a history like that it's wise to comply even if you are not of a superstitious nature!

[luckyeight]

It's also theatrical superstition not to say the last rhyming couplet in a Shakespearian play or pantomime until the opening night. Don't know how that originated. And if you are in the theatre and happen to refer to 'Macbeth' you have to go into the wings and turn around twice on one foot and say Macbeth three times to create an antidote to the hex - or something similar.!