TV PREVIEW
The spy who came in from the
throne
Alan Howard has an awesome record with the
Royal Shakespeare Company: the only actor in history to play all eight
Shakespeare kings.
Now, in his first starring television serial,
Cover, a psychological spy thriller, starting on ITV tonight (9.0) he
becomes a modern wielder of life-or-death power.
He plays Cragoe, head of a Government
spy-testing organisation, a cold-blooded man whose only emotion is obsessive
hatred of a feared colleague.
Meeting Howard in his Stratford-upon-Avon
dressing room, I was relieved that despite his talent for portraying men at the
top, he does not affect a grand demeanour.
At 43, his face framed in long red hair through
which he constantly runs his fingers, he has the fine bone structure of good
breeding. But in his worn trousers and cardigan he looked like a duke's
unworldly younger son, not a ruler.
He was pleasantly flippant: "Playing Cragoe was
a novel experience. I can't remember when I last wore a suit professionally,
and held a telephone, a whisky.....a gun.
"For Shakespeare your weapons are swords and
spears, which can be dangerous if you miss the target. But the main enemy is
the heat of those heavy costumes, Richard III is the worst. His hump is very
uncomfortable.
"Psychologically there is similarity between
the kings of old and the top men of today.
"Heads of organisations are supposed to be iron
men, but half the time when you take the lid off you discover them waking up in
the night sweating and worrying."
Howard's own genealogy is distinguished. On his
maternal side his great-grandfather David [sic] Compton* was gravedigger to Sir
Henry Irving's Hamlet. Actress Fay Compton was his great-aunt, writer Compton
Mackenzie a great-uncle.
Dominating the paternal side, in terms of
success, was his uncle Leslie Howard, one of the screen's romantic
greats.
"I don't remember him," Alan said. "My father,
Arthur, 16 years his junior, suffered in his acting career because he looked
like him.
"Ronald, Leslie's son, suffered too. He was
working happily as a journalist, but because he resembled Leslie so strongly,
after his father's death the film people insisted on signing him. Now he is an
antique dealer.
"My late mother Jean Compton Mackenzie was an
actress. My father is still available for parts. They did not do so
well.
Career
"And my parents were not pleased when I chose
the theatre as a career. From the time I started, at the Belgrade, Coventry, I
did have a lot of unemployment in the early stages."
Since Howard joined the Royal Shakespeare
Company 14 years ago, however, he has never had to chase work. On the contrary,
TV and film people wanting him have hardly been able to catch up with him. His
last film, Work is a Four Letter Word, was 16 years ago. But the parts
which have kept him happy in a thespian's ivory tower are some of Shakespeare's
greatest.......right up to the two kings, Richard II and Richard III, he is
playing in the current RSC season.
Howard, previously married to
actress-turned-designer Stephanie Beaumont, now lives in North London with
journalist Sally Beauman and their five-year-old son James.
He gazed through the net curtains of his
dressing room to the snow falling on the River Avon.
"I'm playing Richard III this afternoon," he
murmured. "I must go and get my hair curled. Since my television role it has
grown again.
"That part also gave me a chance to replenish
my wardrobe. I bought the suit I wear on screen. Now I own two
suits."
Judith Simons
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