Year of the King: An Actor's Diary and Sketchbook - Twentieth Anniversary Edition by Antony Sher Page A

Year's Eve party at Dickie's. What with coming from South Africa to
England, summer to winter, 1983 to 1984, and then waking up with jet
lag and a hangover to find it already getting dark, my grasp on reality is
not all it could be.
Evening. Caryl Churchill's party. Another party?!
    Spend most of the evening with the actress Julie Walters and the
designer Bob Crowley. Julie's just back from a promotion tour round the
States for the film of Educating Rita and is in exhilarating form; being with
her is like riding a spinning top. Bob tells me he's designing Henry V and
Love's Labour's at Stratford and that Bill Dudley will design Richard III.
When I tell him that I haven't decided to do it yet, he says, `Oh, but you
must. It's like the Paul Simon song, "Something so right".' Bob's mouth
always twitching towards a smile; his cheeks look as if he stores goodies
in them, like a hamster does.
    He points to Julie's handbag. It's a miniature violin case in plastic.
Rather like the one he designed for me in King Lear.
    Nicky Wright arrives and I make a bee-line for him. He says there'll
be nothing to read till late January.
    That settles it. The decision will have to be made on Richard alone.
Monday 2 January
    Phone Bill. His manner is slightly impatient. `You must realise, Tony,
that I'm the only one at the directors' meetings who keeps reminding
them that you haven't yet agreed to Richard. Everyone else believes you
will do it, that you must do it at this stage in your career. The character
actor's Hamlet.'

    Drive into the country with Dickie. Wind and rain. Low dark skies. The
countryside looks like it's been dipped in blue ink. Callas singing the
magnificent aria from La Wally.
    We discuss the situation and agree that I'm just playing games, and
they're not even proving effective as negotiating tactics. I'm obviously
going to do Richard III. I'm totally obsessed by it, like being in love - this
one person dominating your every thought. All day, every day, since it was
first mentioned, I've been on the prowl for bits of Richard. Everything
feeds the obsession - Lion's Head in Sea Point, disabled people Christmas
shopping in Oxford Street. And alone in the privacy of my own home
with curtains well drawn and doors securely locked, I try saying aloud,
`Now is the winter ...'
    Dickie suggests I reconsider playing Shawcross in The Party, thinks it
would be good for me to play a less flashy part.
    Evening. Joyce Nettles, the R S C casting director, rings. Says she doesn't
want to put any pressure on me, but the first Stratford leaflet has to go to
print tomorrow. I am about to tell her I'm on board but get side-tracked
into a discussion about The Party.
    She asks, `Is there any other part you'd consider?'
    `Well yes, but it's spoken for.'
    `Sloman?'
    `Yes.'
    She urges me to tell I Toward Davies. `He ought at least to know,' she
says. I tell her I couldn't oust Mal in that way. She says he hasn't been
offered it yet, and volunteers to talk to Howard for me. I make her promise
not to. But the temptation has unsettled me. Go to bed very edgy. It's
almost as if the holiday never happened. Winter howling at the window.
Tuesday 3 January
    M O N TY SESSION lie's very taken with my description of the house in
Sea Point looking like a shrine to me.
    I outline the situation at the R S C. Like Dickie, he urges me to play
Shawcross. `You know I never give you specific directives, but I'm breaking
the rule. Play this part. It's important that you do.'
    `But why? It's perverse and masochistic.'
    `Bullshit! Playing all these showy parts is what's masochistic. You'll
burn yourself out. Play this part, it'll be much harder.'
    `It won't be hard. I can do it standing on my head. The only hard part
will he seeing everybody else have all the fun.'

    `Precisely. You still want to come home from school with prizes and
say, "Look, Mommy, I'm best". You saw the shrine. Now bury all that.'
    I promise to read the play