Jo Nesbo: Macbeth | Live @ The National Theatre

Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the National Theatre in London. We're in the Dorfman Theatre today where The Great Wave will shortly be playing on this very stage. Now, my name is Rosie Goldsmith, and I'm here to interview the great Joe Nesbo. Now, this talk is being live streamed today, so welcome to our online audiences everywhere. Now, following the talk, Joe has kindly said he'll sign copies of Macbeth, which is his novel, not the play, and this is going to happen outside the bookshop in the main building, so please go out of the Dorfman foyer if you want to have your book signed. Do make sure you buy the book, and round to the front of the building, and the bookshop is straight ahead of you on the ground floor. Now, the format of this talk is 30 minutes, and then we have 15 minutes of your wonderful Q&A, so please make sure you have your questions ready, and we do have roving microphones, so for all of you and for all our online friends, we want to make sure that everybody can hear, so please hold the mic right up there, and I'll be very strict with you as a broadcaster if you don't. Now, Macbeth is published tomorrow, so we're very, very lucky to have Joe here tonight to talk about this novel. Now, this is the Scottish novel, as opposed to the Scottish play. It is set in Scotland, and Joe Nesbitt, as you know, is Norwegian, sets most of his novels in Norway, although there's been a bit more of a global approach recently, but you have your detective, Harry Hole, and here you've got your detective, basically, Macbeth. This Macbeth is part of a series, it's called the Hogarth Shakespeare series, and we have a lot of well-known novelists like you, Margaret Atwood, Jeanette Winterson, a whole variety of people who've chosen various Macbeth plays, various Shakespeare plays to retell in modern form. Now, you chose Macbeth. Why did you choose Macbeth? It was the one Shakespeare play that I really knew. Growing up and going to school in Norway, you are not really exposed to Shakespeare in school like you are here. We read Henrik Ibsen, and so, I mean, you do know, of course, Shakespeare, I mean, quotes from Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet, but I didn't really know much about Shakespeare until I was in my early teens, and I saw the Roman Polanski movie, Macbeth, which made a big impression. So, I went back home, my mother was a librarian, so she had a collection of books of Shakespeare's plays that was translated by a famous Norwegian writer, Andre Bjerke, but for some reason, he had not translated Macbeth, so I had to find an English version, and I was, I think was 13 or 14 or something. I read two pages, and I think I maybe understood one sentence, something like that, and so it was totally incomprehensible, so I had to look a little further until I found a Norwegian translation, and I still found it quite difficult, but I think the idea of Macbeth, this character that is your protagonist that you are sort of manipulated into rooting for in the first act and in the first part of the story, I think it was the first time that I was exposed to that kind of hero that you realize a little later in the story, that you are caught rooting for the wrong side, so to speak, but you are still willing and really trying hard to see the world through his eyes, and so it was in my own writing later. It wasn't as if I consciously knew that I'm using the Macbeth character in my character Harry Hole in the series of detective novels that I wrote later, but he's definitely there, so when I was contacted and asked if I would write a novel based on a Shakespeare play, actually my first reaction was to say no, thank you, and I'm flattered, and the reason is that half the fun of being a writer is of course coming up with the idea for a story and then nurturing that idea and the excitement when you know that there's a novel here, but... So you have the plot and you have the characters, you have the title, you took the title directly, and did you feel constrained by that? Was it difficult to write within those parameters? No, actually it was closer to writing one of my own stories, because normally I write a synopsis of 80 or 100 pages, and then I stick to that synopsis when I'm writing the novel, and the only difference here was that this synopsis, and it was a quite good synopsis written by this guy named William. We're on first name terms, as usual. And so it was the same, I mean, it's Shakespeare's shortest play. Your longest novel, maybe. It's a novel of 500, 600 pages, but actually I thought I would change a few things, but I haven't really. I mean, I've thrown all the beautiful prose and poetry of Shakespeare overboard. I don't think anyone would be interested in reading Nespo trying to be Shakespeare. So I wrote it as a thriller set in the 1970s. But interestingly though, it is beautifully written, and it's a really... You have to trust me, I only ever say these things. Nobody pays me to say things, but essentially it's a really thrilling retelling of a story I know very well, and you know very well. And I think that to see Shakespeare in 1970s Macbeth and Shakespeare in 1970s Northern Scotland, which is where it is, and to see it's the 1970s, so it's unemployment, it's industry, it's an industrial town you've taken. Everything is grim and grey and dark. It's a perfect setting. How did you choose the 1970s? I mean, you've got the drug wars, of course, so that's a good plot line. I think there were two reasons. Shakespeare, of course, wrote Macbeth taking a story from the past. So that was the 11th century, basically, and you've gone to the 1970s. So I went to the 1970s because, I mean, most of us nowadays seem to remember the 70s as a time of optimism and great music and material progress, while if you take a closer look at the 70s, it was actually quite a grim period. It was unemployment, pollution, the Cold War, of course, high crime rates in the big cities. Some of the names may indicate that the city in the novel is in Scotland, but actually it's sort of a mix of, I think, Newcastle in the 70s from Get Carter with Michael Caine, and a little bit of New York and Hell's Kitchen from Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll, and also a little bit of Norwegian city Bergen, which is on the west coast of Norway, and which is famous for the weather. It's raining all the time, and of course, in Macbeth, it's a lot of bad weather. So it's an unnamed city, so it's a combination of all this. Although there are lots of Scottish references. I mean, there's the Inverness Casino and so on, the hotel. So I mean, it definitely feels like Scotland. Could be Glasgow, too. Could be Glasgow. It's called Capital. The city's called Capital. I mean, the synopsis is basically, I mean, this may sound quite similar to Macbeth, strangely, but I mean, the synopsis is basically, it's 1970s Scotland. It's this northern industrial city. There's lots of unemployment. It's a city of drug wars and unemployment, we say. It's casinos, crime, corruption. And you've got Duncan is the chief of police, and Macbeth and Banquo are basically officers. They are, Macbeth is the head of the SWAT team, and Banquo is there, as you know, the two generals in the opening of Macbeth itself. They are, the two of them are there, and you stick very much to their character lines as well. Macbeth is a big giant of a man. He's a strong man. He's a valiant soldier. He's a good man, but possibly a bit weak. And then Duncan is this lovely man, sophisticated, educated, wants to rid the city of crime and corruption. So you have stuck very much to the feel of the characters in the original Macbeth. My experience was that if I tried to change anything in the story, in the structure of the story, it fell apart. Did you try, and then it didn't work? I did. I wasn't, I was never, I was always a bit suspicious of the three witches in the story, the supernatural elements of the story. It felt a little bit like, you know, you had to throw those in to make everything work. And I was looking at the possibility of removing them, because I didn't want the supernatural element. But it's the reason why it's a masterpiece, and you sit there and you try to take something away or change anything in the X structure, and you realize, really, you can't. It's all needed. And so what I did was that instead of having the three witches being the supernatural elements, I made them into, because, I mean, in the play, they are cooking this witch's brew. In the novel, they are cooking methamphetamine. So the brew is drugs. The brew is drugs. It works perfectly, though. And then later on, there's a drug called the power. I mean, it's fantastic stuff. I mean, not only have you sort of taken this story pretty literally, you've actually developed it in the most extraordinary and very, very credible way. And this story of the witches is interesting, too, because, you know, you're going along and you're thinking, where are they? Where are they? Oh, what the witches? And then they do come, but they come in a very different form. The three sisters, the three women, the three sisters are there. And you've got the drug kingpin, who is Hekate, Hekate, I think, I don't know how you say it in Norwegian, but we say Hekate. And so Hekate is the drug kingpin. So the person who runs the witches, if you like, now becomes a drug overlord. So it's very, very clever indeed. This is a tragedy. Macbeth is a tragedy. Do you see your novel as a tragedy? I do. This is, of course, it's a thriller, but it's not who's done it. We know. This is why did he do it or they do it. But I think it's also at the core of both the play and the novel, I think it's a great love story. I think that that is sometimes underestimated to what extent it's a truly moving love story. I mean, the love between Lady Macbeth or Lady, as she's called in the novel, because they are not married, and Macbeth, it's true love. It's sort of a Bonnie and Clyde story that they are taking this journey over to the dark side together because they don't really collaborate with anybody else. All they need is each other. And in the novel, it seems silly to quote yourself when you're writing something based on Shakespeare. But it's a key dialogue in the book is when Macbeth is saying to Lady that you are making me going, taking a trip to hell. And she answers that wherever you are going, I'm going with you. So they are this Bonnie and Clyde couple. You describe very often how they breathe in rhythm. There's a lot of beautiful writing. I know you're sort of underplaying yourself, but there is a lot of beautiful Jo Nesbo writing as well there. And that's something I've always loved about your novels anyway. But the Macbeth and Lady story is a wonderful story. And the great thing about being able to write a novel about those characters and Duff, as he's called, not Macduff, but Duff and Duncan, is that you can really develop the characters backwards and forwards. And you give a back story as well to their love story and how they met. You explain how they met. Now Lady is a casino and hotel owner, and she's very beautiful and a little bit older than Macbeth. He's in his early 30s, and she's older. And you can tell from the beginning, in the same way you can with Shakespeare, that she's ruthless and strong, that however much they love each other, she can still manipulate him and push him into doing things. And the scene where, I mean, he gets promoted, he's not giving anything away, because you know the story. But he gets promoted to become police commissioner, and you know why and how they kill Duncan. And that scene, which we all know so well, the murder of Duncan, which is told in your own way, this extremely close couple, and how she makes him do it, is absolutely brilliant. I mean, it's a wonderful scene. And even though I know the outcome, I was really gripped by the writing. Did you get more and more into this story? Did you really understand Macbeth, do you think, even more? However well you know the play, you must have really delved very deeply into this, into him. I think the text is so rich, that there's not one way to understand Macbeth. I think you can, there are so many options. You know, you could probably give, I think I've given, the background I've given for Lady Macbeth is based really on one sentence in the play, where she's describing how she would be willing, in order to be king, or she would be willing to kill her own baby. And that is, that was for me, in that one statement, was the whole background for Lady in this story. She grew up poor in a family. She was sexually exploited by her father. She ran away from home, was a young prostitute, and swore that she would survive, and that she would become a respectable woman at one time. She gets pregnant with a customer, and she is forced to kill her baby in order to achieve her goals. And that is, that background is what has made her what she is. She is now a businesswoman, running a casino, a stylish casino. She is having political friends, and her business is everything. That is how she is going to be a respected woman, and maybe a feared woman. And of course, when she sees the opportunity that her young lover, Macbeth, can be chief of police, she sees that as a means to reach her goals as a businesswoman. So she is, to me, that background sort of explains how she can be the strong one, the one that pushes Macbeth. But again, Macbeth is a bit weaker. But in the play it's interesting, because when he is approached by the witches in the first act, he is scared. You can see that he is scared when he is presented with a prophecy, and it's only a prophecy that he will be king. It's as if he already knows what is going to happen, that he has it in him, that he can be a murderer, that he is going to kill the king or the chief of police that he really respects, and that he is ready to serve in order to be king himself. So he is not this innocent man being manipulated by this strong woman. But he needs her pushing him. So it's a combination, I think, of him wanting to be king, personal ambition, but also needing this strong woman to push him off the edge. And setting the story, as you do, in the 1970s, we've got all these issues, political issues, social issues of that period as well, which are, I mean, it is the play that is constantly relevant. And it's obviously relevant in that period that you've chosen as well, because what they're trying to do, I mean, Macbeth and Lady are, she says, we're doing it for the poor people. We're doing it for people like us. You know, you have to kill Duncan, because he's elite, and he's an intellectual. And it's basically them against us. And that, in a way, that's what motivates Macbeth to do what he does. At least it's, I don't know if that's what motivates him, but that's his excuse. That's the rhetorics that they use among themselves to say that we are not a villain, we are doing the right thing. And then you've got another huge and very important area, which you look at madness and mental breakdown through Macbeth, but also through Lady as well. I mean, that's very, very strong in your novel too. Again, you're following Shakespeare's guidelines there, but looking at this in a very intense, you know, personal writer's way. How did you get that deep? It's very moving and quite upsetting, actually. I mean, it's there in the play. It's very disturbing reading or watching the characters going crazy, because you do invest emotionally in these characters. So it's, what can I say? It's more gut feeling. It's both the most unpleasant and most challenging part of writing, is making, whether it's in Macbeth or it's the Harry Hall series, is when you are breaking them down, that you are sort of torturing your own characters and you are going through what they are going through. Because you have, whether it's the protagonist or antagonist, as a writer, you have to work a little like an actor. You have to try to feel what they feel and find what, whether it's a sociopath or it's someone crazily in love. You have to find that inside yourself and use that. So what can I say? It's maybe a little bit on my own. It's not like I think I'm going to be mad one day, but I've seen people, you know, slipping into insanity and it seems like a very lonely and scary place. So I think that is also pure for the way you write about it. Of course, some drugs play a huge role in that, and for Macbeth, who is, as you portray him, a very weak character who had a very difficult past and he comes, he returns to that past again. He sort of becomes that person again and you can see his breakdown and hers too. And again, you don't deviate from the story, so we know what happens. It's such a great pity in the end they both die, because I could have seen this as a great series that you could have continued. The detective Macbeth, it would have been wonderful. But, you know, your novels are very well known for being, for portraying and depicting violence and, you know, bloodthirsty, violent characters extremely well. And it's one reason I sometimes find them difficult to read. But in here, you've certainly, with this play, you've certainly got enough violence and bloodthirsty characters. You must have been quite pleased about that. Well, actually, it's not Shakespeare's bloodiest play. Well, it's that Cori Laner's, I think. I think the body count is higher in both King Beer and Hamlet, actually. Yeah, you can do that next, maybe. But yeah, I think I was drawn to the play because of the violence. And because of, you know, the idea that... What is it that draws you to violence? I think it's, I'm fascinated with the character's fascination for violence as much as I'm also curious about the violence. I mean, I remember when I was a kid in school, there was this boy sitting by the window and he would catch flies in the windowsill. And then he would use a tweezer and pick off the legs of the fly and put it down and see if it could move, take off one wing, see if it could fly and catch it again. And I was looking at him and I realized that, why do you bring a tweezer to school? And so I was fascinated with that. You know, who is this guy? On the other hand, there's another part of me that is also curious about, but will the fly fly without one wing? So I have a little of both. By the way, the guy, he is now seemingly a happily father of three in a happy marriage. So there's always a happy ending, but not really. This is what we know about him. Read the next book. The other thing which is very strong here, and again in the Macbeth plays, is atmosphere, environment, location, and how they also impact on people and character as well. And you write every single chapter normally, you start with some description of the weather and of rain and so on too. And you really do get a feeling that, whether it's the moorland or whatever, that it does have an impact on people. And the industrial landscape too that you described, do you feel that is an important element of any story? Yeah, I think that sense of time and place is important. And especially here, because it's this unnamed city, so you have to sort of, I mean, if you're he was walking down Fifth Avenue on Manhattan, you don't have to describe as much because you're pretty sure that people know that place. Here I have to sort of create the universe using things that are known. It's set in the 70s, you know, it's an industrialized city, so you do get some ideas. But I don't refer to an actual place, so I have to build that universe. And I also build it in a way that it's, it could be a factual place, but it's also, it's inside by a fjord, inside some mountains, and it's always raining there, and it's very polluted. But then if you drive through one of the tunnels and you get out on the other side, it's always sunny. So it's like this dreamlike landscape in one way. Or nightmare landscape. Yeah, right. Exactly. It's daytime and nighttime. So it could be a real place, but it's slightly unreal at the same time. It's a little bit like Sin City, the Frank Miller movie and graphic novels. Macbeth is being performed at the moment, it's in repertoire here at the National Theatre at the moment, which is why we've also invited you. And that play is, the way that has been directed is as a dystopia, a completely black and blood drenched dystopia, which you can imagine as well. Everybody has their interpretation of Macbeth, but this in a way has stuck more closely to the play than I would have expected. And I'm really delighted by that. How have you enjoyed, or what have you learned from your collaboration with Shakespeare? Would you do it again? Was it intimidating? Was it inspiring? It wasn't intimidating, because I never saw Macbeth as the perfect story. And maybe... What do you mean? A story to be improved or... Actually, I have to admit, I thought I could improve it. I couldn't. So I ended up sticking to the story as it is. But I mean, you don't get fascinated by perfect stories, I think. I think it's one of the reasons why we keep going back to Macbeth, is that there's always that element that you can't really sort out. You always leave the story with questions that you won't answer, because there's... Inside the story, there's this beauty. I mean, it's awful, but at the same time, there's this beauty and this feeling that there's something profoundly true in that story. But to put your finger on it is difficult. And I guess that is the reason why I wanted to see what I could do with the story and see if it meant anything different to me after having worked on it. What I ended up realizing is that there is not one Macbeth story. There are so many options, so many possibilities in the story that you could write 100 different stories based on that one short story. And the other thing I learned is that William Shakespeare was quite good at what he was doing. I think this is a good time to hear what all of you have got to say. And if you have any questions at all to Joe about... I mean, not many of you would have been able to read the book yet, but you will know the story. So do ask Joe Nesbo anything you like, any questions. We have the roving mics. And if we could get our folk with the mics to come down as quickly as possible. We've got one question here. We've got another here. If you could bring one mic here and one mic here. And we'll start. Whoever gets the microphone first. There we are. Thank you. And if you could bring the other mic, it is to the gentleman over there. Yes, and I'll tell you off if I can't hear you. Okay, fine. Fascinating to hear the way you've actually... Can you hold it a little bit higher? Yeah, fascinating to hear the way that you've developed the story. And as was stated earlier, the Scottish play is being performed here at the current time. Do you ever see that your version of it, or your improvement on it maybe, could be a template perhaps for a future play based on Macbeth? Great, great question. Could we have the other mic over there? You mean whether I could see a play based on the novel? Yeah, taking the full round, sort of. And then the film. Yeah, and then the video game. He has thought about it. Well, you know, I think it was Milan Kundera, the writer, who said that the novel can only exist as long as the novel does what only the novel can do. And it's elegantly put, but I don't know if I totally agree. But writing a novel, I'm using the possibilities that the novels give me. And I'm probably more conscious about doing that when it's based on a play. I can see what I can do, like giving background stories for all the characters and moving them around in the country. I haven't really thought about it. I've written a novel. That was my mission. But if anybody sees a play in it, they're welcome. If you'd like to. And the next question, a gentleman here. Yeah? Is there the porter scene in it? Is there what? Can you call it the porter scene? Is there a porter scene? Yeah. And do you use equivocation as well? What is a porter scene? The bit after Duncan's killed and then the scene where the porter, the knocking on the door. The knocking on the door. Yes. Yeah, it's in there. It's all in there. My other question was about... He's basically just rewritten Shakespeare. My other question is, in Macbeth, equivocation is an important part, the use of equivocation. So not telling the truth, but, you know, with a detective story, I thought you would use equivocation. Equivocation and not always the truth head on. Yes. Well, that's definitely something you do, I think, in your novel as well. Any more questions? We've got mics up there as well. Anybody up there want to ask a question? And we have a question here. Hi. So what's next? Have you got another book in mind or another plot? Another Shakespeare plot or... Well, anything really. What's next? Well, you've always got... You've just published a Harry Haller, haven't you? Last year. The Thirst. Thirst. Yeah, right now I'm working actually on a new Harry Hall novel. You're calling him Harry Hall. I am. And I'm calling him Harry Hall. I thought I was flattering you by being very Norwegian. Yeah, and I'm flattering you by being very English. Touche. Fantastic. But I don't think you'd ever kill off Harry Haller with it, would you? Okay, right. Any more questions from anyone? There's a question at the back there and there's a question over here. Can we get the mics up to each person? And one here. Great. Thank you. Go for it. Can you hold it a little bit closer? You're from Bergen? Yes, I'm from Bergen. Yes, I live in England, but I'm from Bergen. The Macbeth novel is some of the scenes based in Bergen or in the area, like in your Snowman novel. So are any of the scenes in Macbeth actually based in Bergen, as in your Snowman novel? Well, it's a little bit the idea of Bergen. As you live in Bergen, you know that if you go through the tunnels and you go to Sutra, it could be raining in Bergen. And then 10, 15 minutes drive away, the sun is shining. You've got seven hills in Bergen, haven't you? Yeah, right. I know Bergen. I bought my best raincoat in Bergen. It has wonderful raincoats. It's a lovely shop. And they have this, at least when I studied there, they have this tradition that you have an umbrella, but it's not like it's your umbrella. It's everybody's umbrella. So you go to place, you will leave your umbrella. And when you're leaving, your umbrella is gone. So you just take somebody else's umbrella. And everybody is more or less okay with that. It's a very good system. And we have a question here. And we'll go back there. So it's a little bit difficult to see. Hi, how do you ensure nothing's lost in translation? Obviously, you write in Norwegian, it's translated into English. How do you make sure we don't lose the essence of your stories or your characters? This is a great question. The translation question is very important. And it's also a great opportunity for me to tell everybody that your book, Macbeth, is translated by one of the greatest translators from Norwegian. He's called Don Bartlett. And he's translated also Carl Ove Knorthard and lots of other great Norwegian writers too. So the translation question, how do you ensure that nothing is lost in translation? You can't really. And things will get lost in translation. It's inevitable. And I did read the first chapter on my first novel that was translated. And I could tell it was well translated. I could also see that things got lost in translation. And I realized I could not have done a better job myself trying to translate it. So it's mostly humor, I think. That will get lost in translation. But of course, the English translation for small countries and small languages like Norway and maybe Denmark, Iceland, and so on, the English translation is extremely important. Because when you get translated to South Korea, you don't find anyone who will translate from Norwegian to Korean. So then you rely on the English translation. But it's a very important and very interesting question. Because of course, I wouldn't be able to read this if it hadn't been translated. And many of us here wouldn't. I don't know if anybody, apart from you, is Norwegian. Okay, question here and question there. Yes, please, go ahead. Cultural references of Macbeth, you know, influences so many different kind of films, plays, books, TV shows. So when you started the writing of Macbeth, did you try and steer away of being influenced by any of those cultural influences and just stick with the source? Or actually, did you kind of encourage those kind of filters in terms of how you reinterpreted the whole play? I think that if you look at stories that are not like Macbeth, but that are definitely inspired by Macbeth, for example, I mean, the movie Scarface or Breaking Bad, you don't find any of the cultural references, of course. In my case, I'm sort of a little bit of both. That I set it in a different place and a different time. And that is my starting point. But there's no doubt that I'm influenced by the play and by the Roman Polanski movie. So it's both yes and no. So what did you start with? Did you start with the story or the characters or the location? How did you start? I started with the story. With the murder of Duncan. The hesitation. The why should we, should we not? You know, that sort of the plot point. Where it's all decided. What makes you cross the line? And working with that. And then the characters grow out of that. Because you can't really create the character that when you get to that point, it doesn't add up. This character wouldn't do that, you know. So you have to, so I started sort of in the middle or quite early on in the play. And then I would write myself backwards towards the start and forward to the end. And question there? Hold it closer. Sorry, can you hear me? We've seen a lot of Scandinavian crime thrillers the last 10 years. And I was curious to find out whether, how true is it of the crime scene there? So that's very good. So we've seen, we have indeed watched a lot of Nordic noir, Scandi noir, read a lot over the last few years. How true is it of actual crime in your part of the world? Let me put it this way, that there's probably been murdered more people in my novels the last 10 years than there has in Oslo, in total. But I think in the whole of Norway, there were 25 murders last year. So let me put it, the real crime scene doesn't live up to the novels. And if you think of Icelandic noir, for instance, I think Iceland has almost no murders each year, but somehow they've developed a whole scene of Icelandic noir writing, novel writing. Any more questions? And one at the back there and one here. If there are any more, just shout out. I'm seeing only people here at the moment. Okay, yeah. Hi, can you hear me? Yes. You said basically all the stories in the 70s in Scotland. I was wondering if you have done any research about 70s Scotland. You already said something very specific, but I was wondering how actually you went to, you know, have done research on the internet or read books. Good question. I mean, whether you did your research, did you go to Scotland and researched, whether you know Scotland? Yeah, I don't think it's a good question because I just said that it's not in Scotland. It's a combination of different cities. So no, I did not go. I mean, I've been to Scotland. My brother lived in Scotland. So I went there. So I know they have a lot of bad weather there too. So I used names from the play. And like I said, it could be Scotland. It could be Glasgow. But it's more a combination of a few cities. And basically it's a city of fiction. But the 70s, I'm a bit too young to really have experienced the 70s. But maybe that's the reason why I'm so fascinated with the 70s. And I wrote two short novels, one called Blood on Snow and Midnight Sun, that both are from the 70s. So I have been doing research. They're standalone. They're not Harry Hall. They're standalone. They are standalone, yeah. I don't know how you write so much. I mean, these are big books, you know. What are you doing here? You should be writing. We're wasting your time. I am. We're wasting your time writing in your head. And one more question, I think we have. Hello. Yeah, that's better. Yeah, mine's a simple question. How long did it take you to actually write the book and to add on to that same question? Did you do it all in one go? Or did you break off and do a bit of Harry stuff? No, it was all in one go. I find it, as soon as I start writing on a novel, I find it hard to... I mean, I can't stop, leave the universe and that world and get back. But it's easier to be in the novel the whole time until it's finished. And for me then, it's not like I'm writing the whole time, but I'm more or less in there the whole time. I try to act as if I can hear what people are saying to me and I socialize a little bit. When you said just now that you are writing in your head, you're only half listening. No, no. Right now, I'm here. How long did it take you to write? Two years, I think. I wonder how long it took Shakespeare to write. You'll never know. We can't ask him, but we can ask you. And we have to end it there, unfortunately. But I want you to please thank Joe Nesbo so much for talking to us. Thank you. And thank you to everyone at the National Theatre. Thank you to all of you for watching online as well. And do join Joe later in the bookshop for signing the books. And just to tell you, this is a really masterful retelling of Macbeth. It's a wonderful book. It's morally complex and quite brilliant. So thank you personally to you for a wonderful book. Thank you, Joe Nesbo.