This takes the biscuit for the weirdest story of the week. Actor Daniel Hoevels, in the final scene of Schiller's masterpiece Mary Queen of Scots at Vienna's Burgtheater, slit his own throat when it turned out that the prop knife he was using was in fact a real knife. The knife, mercifully, missed the carotid artery. Otherwise he could have been in real trouble.
It's either a case of fabulously incompetent props management or malevolence. I'm afraid I immediately thought of Margaret Rutherford and Murder Most Foul, the 1964 Miss Marple drama in which Rutherford uncovers evil deeds among a theatre troupe. But I'm trying to cast that unworthy thought from my mind. Poor old Hoevels. Still, he was back on stage the following night. What a trouper. I know from reading Nick Asbury's blog – he was one of the ensemble in the RSC's History Plays – that from time to time a punch or a kick on-stage can be just a touch harder than it might be, and can be the expression of "real" pent-up aggression. But surely a real knife would be taking it a little too far...
