Sher force of character

Understandably given its bulk, Antony Sher’s Falstaff in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s recent production of Shakespeare’s two Henry IV plays had a long period of gestation before it emerged, fully formed and laughing, from under the covers of a bed also occupied by Prince Hal and a couple of prostitutes. Sher tells the story in diary form, as he did that of his Year of the King (1985), in which he described how his sensational Richard III arrived ‘before his time into this breathing world’.

Falstaff was not obvious casting for one who does not profess to be a comic actor. Sher has written that he prefers to forget his Malvolio in Twelfth Night — indeed, he omits it from the list of his roles given here — and his partner and director, Gregory Doran, had offered Falstaff to other actors before mentioning it to him. Describing how he approached the task of learning the role — or indeed roles, because the Falstaff of Henry IV Part Two differs considerably from that of Part One — Sher discusses the difference between a ‘personality actor’ (one who ‘makes the part come to him’) and himself as a ‘character actor’ ( ‘I go to the part’).