Booking the Steve Earle concert reminded me of the last time we went to the Barbican was ages ago seeing Antony Sher playing Shylock in an RSC production of Merchant of Venice having seen him earlier as Richard III all hunched up with a black very ragged ended cloak. We were treated to a performance and half from him.
A little search and foung the following on the RSC's site
In 1984, in a feted production of Richard III, Bill Alexander directed Antony Sher in a career-defining performance. The sheer physicality of Sher's acting excited and terrified audiences in equal measure. His athletic use of crutches meant he could scuttle across the stage like a scorpion moving in for the kill. The complexity and cunning of Richard was demonstrated from the very first line of the play. In a vivid description of the power of this scene, Jack Tinker wrote: 'First he surprises us with the unaccustomed sweetness of those opening lines. His crutches and deformity are concealed in an almost lyrical interpretation of the 'glorious summer' he prophesies. Then suddenly two crutches are swung forward and his tiny misshapen humpback body, dressed from neck to toe in shiny clinging black, propels itself forward with the speed of light to the edge of the stage to insist: 'I that am not shaped for sportive tricks. . . '[I.i.14]. Seldom have I seen an actor switch mood with such speed' (The Daily Mail, 21/06/84).
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