24 Apr 07

'If a play is rehearsed properly, it will become unrehearsed again when it is on stage, and neither actors or audience know what is going to happen next', said Patrick Stewart, Cameron Mackintosh Visiting Professor of Contemporary Theatre in his inaugural lecture at St Catherine's College.

In his lecture entitled 'Are you anybody' he talked about his career as an actor, which has ranged from the world of Shakespearean theatre to contemporary film and television.

The title sprang from his early experiences as an actor with the Royal Shakespeare Company. A more famous actor with whom he was working at the time was regularly greeted at the stage door by a mass of young female fans clamouring for his autograph. 'Are you anybody?' was a fan's question to the young Patrick Stewart as she thrust pen and paper in his direction.

But far from his lecture being an egocentric trip down memory lane, he described vividly to his audience what it means to be an actor and what actors hope to achieve. Where his own words weren't enough, he enlisted the help of Melville and Shakespeare.

His reading from Moby Dick brought his love of language and performing to life: 'language, texture, unexpected juxtaposition, startling, bold language', he exclaimed.

He described how he was inspired by his English teacher to read and perform Shakespeare, and spoke of his fear of acting, which he only overcame at the age of 30. 'It wasn't stage fright,' he said, 'it was a fear of exposing myself. The emotions I felt when I read that piece to you just now, I wouldn't have allowed to show when I was young. I was hiding behind my characters.'

Only when he was asked to play Leontes in Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale did he work to overcome this fear, and wasn't afraid to find 'that tortured young man' within himself. Again, he thrilled his audience by performing a scene from the play during the lecture.

In 1986 he was invited to do masterclasses, lectures and workshops in the United States. Robert Judgeman, the producer of Star Trek, was one of the participants and Star Trek mythology has it that he turned to his wife and said: 'we found the captain'.

The role, which Patrick Stewart was offered months later, meant unknown riches to him but also a relentless schedule of hard work. While he had been told by 'those in the know' that the series didn't have a chance to last more than a year, he actually ended up performing, and partly directing, 178 episodes over seven years. Eventually, his heart was in the theatre and he returned to England.

He spoke of his immense joy of being back in England again, where he currently plays Antony in Antony and Cleopatra and Prospero in The Tempest, while rehearsing the role of Macbeth, which is due to open on 25 May at the Chichester Festival Theatre.