Shakespeare adaptation by Andy Griffiths
Just Macbeth is an adaptation of William Shakespeare's play Macbeth. It was written by Australian children’s author Andy Griffiths and produced by Bell Shakespeare as well as being released as a book.
Storyline
For the basic plotline, see Macbeth.
Andy, Lisa and Danny are practicing a scene from Macbeth. They make a potion with all three of them then drinking the potion, which sends them into the Macbeth play. After a battle Andy and Danny walk and find three witches, who tell them that Macbeth is going to be Thane of Cawdor and Banquo's children will be king before disappearing. Andy and Danny then realized that they are in Macbeth, Andy is Macbeth and Danny is Banquo. Lennox then comes in and tells them that King Duncan would be arriving at Macbeth’s castle to celebrate and he would be staying the night there. Macbeth goes back to his castle where he finds that Lisa is Lady Macbeth. King Duncan and Lennox then arrive at their castle and celebrate their victory. Lisa tells Andy to kill the king. When Andy goes out to kill King Duncan he meets Danny and his son Fleance. Andy kills the king in his sleep. Everyone is shocked to hear that the king has been killed. Because Duncan's son is away, Macbeth was decided to be king. Andy becomes increasingly suspicious of Danny and the witch’s prophecy. He orders two assassins to kill Danny and Fleance. They succeed in killing Danny but Fleance escapes. At the banquet, Danny's ghost haunts Macbeth, who runs away from the ghost in fear. The others who can't see the ghost think Macbeth is going mad. Macbeth then goes to visit the witches again. The witches summon some spirits who tell him that no man born of a woman can kill him. Andy thinks everybody is born from a woman, and that no one can kill him and that he will never be overthrown. He orders many people to be killed by his invention: mash and pulverizing machine. A doctor and a nurse tell Andy that Lisa has gone mad and sleepwalks. Andy becomes increasingly guilty of what he has done. A guard then tells Andy that Lisa died and that an army of gnomes are attacking from England. Still convinced that no one can kill him, he fights the gnomes. MacDuff then fights Macbeth. MacDuff tells Andy that he was not born of a woman because "from his mother's womb he was untimely ripped" right before cutting Andy's head off. It is then revealed that the entire play was Andy, Danny and Lisa’s version of Macbeth.
Book and film
Just Macbeth! was released as a book in June 2009. It contains pictures by Terry Denton, like it happens with the other books of the series. Several things were changed from the play, for example: the King sings a generic song, and Happy Tree Friends is changed to "Axe Wielding, Blood-Sucking Freaks".
Self-references
All six Just! books are mentioned or quoted, and on page 66, there's all the weird creatures from the front covers of them.
- Just Tricking!:
- Just Annoying!: Wish You Weren’t Here; Garden Gnomes
- Just Stupid!: Busting; Runaway Pram; Food Fight; Chubby Bubbies
- Just Crazy!: Bandaid; A Crazy, Bad, Dumb, Bad, Bad, Dumb, Crazy, Bad Idea; Kittens, Puppies and Ponies
- Just Disgusting!:Brussel Sprouts; Go to Bed (book only); Two Brown Blobs; Shut Up!; The Story of the Very Stupid Boy and the Very Big Slug
- Just Shocking!: 101 Dangerous Things
The Bad Book is also mentioned on page 197, saying to look at all of the pages in the book to find out more about 'the bottom of the barrel'.
