Macbeth has always been a great crowd-pleaser, and yet it has a reputation for bad luck and its name must never be pronounced inside a theatre.

Ironically, one theory for all this suggests the reason lies in the play's historic popularity with audiences. This was the show that theatre companies might have in their repertoire in case of emergency: if interest in Hamlet was flagging, there was always Macbeth to dust off as a good box office draw.

Despite its short length, Macbeth contains a substantial amount of on-stage violence. If under-rehearsed, it is not hard to imagine that accidents would occur, and so the play's reputation for attracting the unhealthy attentions of evil forces from some dark beyond grew.

No one is quite sure when Macbeth was first performed. There is evidence that it was first performed on stage in 1611, but legend has it that it was acted for King James I at Hampton Court at least five years earlier.

There was plenty in the play to keep the king absorbed. James was fascinated by witchcraft. He spent much of his reign convinced that he was the target of a Satanic conspiracy and removed his greatest political rival in Scotland, the Earl of Bothwell, by accusing him of plotting his downfall with some North Berwick witches. James even attended the torture and prosecution of the arrested coven members. In 1597, he published the book Demonology, which summed up his thinking on the subject.

Macbeth is about many things. Read as a tragedy, it is an examination of a man who suffers from "vaulting ambition", anticipates the dangers and misery that may flow from his ruthless pursuit of power and yet pursues it all the same.

His flaw is to believe that he is beyond the reach of fate, while his defiance in the face of disaster restores his heroic status. Like the previous Thane of Cawdor, "Nothing in his life becomes him like the leaving of it."

Other critics see the play as a study in politics. Strip away the mystifying magic and ghosts, and you are left with a stark object lesson in the practicalities of power.

This "reading against the grain" places emphasis on the weakness of King Duncan, beset by enemies at the start of the play and relying on brutal warlords such as Macbeth to preserve him on the throne. Once Macbeth takes the crown, we witness the corrupting influence of absolute power and the fears that attend those who wield it.

In an extraordinary moment in the banquet scene, the realities of Macbeth's rule are laid bare. He greets his guests: "Be large in mirth, anon we'll drink a measure/ The table round." Immediately, he turns to a murderer: "There's blood upon thy face." In two juxtaposed lines the public relations of power give way to the ruthlessness that underpins tyranny.

Your unavoidable fate is that Macbeth is on the syllabus at key stage 3. There is nothing like thinking of a play as a SATs set text for draining it of its mystery. But look beyond this if you can. The scenes you will be studying in depth spotlight the process a person must go through to commit premeditated murder (Act 1 Scenes 6 and 7) and the macabre horrors of witchcraft and prediction that drive him to greater excesses (Act 4 Scene1).

It is a fascinating journey and it may colour your judgment of politicians forever.

Macbeth the movie

There are a number of film versions of Macbeth that will help give you a sense of the play in performance.

Orson Welles' 1948 Macbeth: high on shadow and spoken in strange Scots accents, the film was made in 21 days on sets made from papier maché.

Joe Macbeth (1955): a British-made gangster version that required actors such as Sid James (of Carry On fame) to speak in an American accent. "Intriguing", to damn it with faint praise.

Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood: don't let the fact that it is black and white and in Japanese put you off. It is visually stunning. The final sequence in which wave upon wave of arrows pepper the king is extraordinary.

Roman Polanski's Macbeth (1972): gory and brutal. Apart from a number of decapitations and hangings, it also features an early performance of Keith Chegwin as Banquo's son Fleance. Surely, on the strength of that alone the British Board Of Film Classification should consider revising the certificate down to PG?

• Jerome Monahan is currently working on an education pack for Film Education and the British Film Institute on film versions of Macbeth.