has gone one better. enormous chocolate statues have sprung up in durbuy, south east of brussels, as part of the chocopalace festival. it's already attracted 30,000 visitors to its chocolate zoo, its chocolate river and its chocolate sculpting sessions. a0 chocolate artistes have produced giant models of gorillas, elephants and flamingos all crafted from belgian chocolate, with some up to three metres tall. it's time for meet the author with rebecca jones. sir antony sher‘s portrayal of king learfor sir antony sher‘s portrayal of king lear for the royal shakespeare company was acclaimed as a crowning achievement in a major career. the role is so demanding it is often described as the arrest of acting, and in his new book he captures every step of the journey, in a year of the mad king: the lear diaries, he charts the months involved in

researching and rehearsing and performing one of shakespeare's‘s most challenging parts and the obstacles most challenging parts and the o bsta cles he most challenging parts and the obstacles he encountered along the way. sir antony sher, you have played many of the greatest roles in shakespeare from richard iii to shylock and now king lear, and you have also written fiction and nonfiction and plays, so what do you see yourself as, an actor or a writer? i quite like the fact that i do both and in fact i'm an artist as welcomer i paint and draw —— as well, i paint. many of the illustrations are in the books. i

have a restless personality and i'm a workaholic. so just one of those things wouldn't be quite enough to feed my habit. it is good to be able to keep going between the three. does the writing and painting and acting, do they complement each other? yes, well, the drawing and sketching, i do when i'm developing a character to work out how they might look or even how they feel. and the writing, well, in the theatre journals, it is a diary adapted from my diary, and ifind doing a diary every day very cathartic. you off—load all the stuff that might be troubling you or indeed exciting new about the work,

so indeed exciting new about the work, so they do we've into one another. here you are, keeping this diary as you embark on what you say is one of the most challenging roles you have ever played. for people who don't know king lear that well, why is it so know king lear that well, why is it so difficult, that part? because it has a kind of epic quality. it's no accident that at the centre of shakespeare's‘s play there is this almighty storm. you find lear shouting at the storm. he's arguing with a storm. and that's the kind of size of the part, you sometimes feel that as an ordinary human being you are not enough for the part, that the part requires a force of nature. it requires you to be a storm

yourself or stop especially in the first half of the play because he has these huge scenes with huge rages, one after the other. enormous power and force coming off him, and later in the play it becomes gentler and quieter which is much easier to do. you write in the book about your fear of failure, your inability to scale this mountain that is this role, and some people might be surprised by this given your vast experience but that was how you feel? every time you come to one of the great shakespeare roles you risk failure but you also have this incredibly challenging exciting and frightening task of, can you match

the genius of shakespeare's‘s writing? because he creates these astonishing characters. will you be able to interpret them in a meaningful way? the production able to interpret them in a meaningfulway? the production is directed by the artistic director of the rsc who is also your partner and the rsc who is also your partner and the man you marry in the course of the man you marry in the course of the book. i was struck by how much input you had into things like the casting, the design, the cuts that we re casting, the design, the cuts that were made to the text, and i wondered, is that normal or do you have special privileges because you are ina have special privileges because you are in a relationship with the director? i think any leading actor would be invited by the director to comment on some of the things which are going into making up the production. especially in the way

the design... because, you know, if you were a direct you wouldn't want your leading actor to discover on the first aid of rehearsals that they are playing it in modern dress when they thought they might be in period costume —— if you were a director. interns of casting, i did have much to do with that at all, although he might say to me, what do you think of so and so for a certain pa rt you think of so and so for a certain part —— in terms of casting i didn't have much to do with that. i would probably say, great, let's try and yet that person. you reflect on parallels with your life and the lives of lear, and the first issue will falter in life at times, with your bad shoulder, how useful were those real—life experiences in preparation for the role? at the time they didn't feel useful, they felt too close for comfort. i also

had two members of my family passed away and some other people that i knew well passed away. it felt quite strange. running through the play king lear is to paraphrase lear, the smell of mortality, a sense of the fragility of life and human life, that's a terribly strong theme in the play. and here i was rehearsing the play. and here i was rehearsing the part and acting those things but also experiencing them in real life. so it was a strange time. that was often a bit painful and difficult but thank goodness it worked out in the end. you mention a couple of

times in the book the possibility of stopping acting. are you just toying with that idea or is this a serious possibility? apart from anything else, i've spent my career as a classical actor mainly, mainly as a shakespeare actor, and i've run out of parts because he wrote three great parts for older actors, prospero, for staff and lear, and i've done the three of them now. i'm not quite sure where i go next. female roles perhaps? in the book you talk about approaching adrian noble who ran the rsc in the 90s about playing the pat rafter author may be this idea was ahead of its time —— about playing cleopatra. with the gender casting being

something that is now up for discussion, yes, but unfortunately i'm a little too old for cleopatra now! i might stand a better chance of getting it now than i did at the time when adrian noble simply said, ifi time when adrian noble simply said, if i gave you cleopatra every leading actress in this country would lynch me. so things are a bit different now. exactly, how times have changed for top so if you are toying with giving up acting, would you ever give up writing? no, i mean, that's what... the writing and painting is what i would do if acting did come to an end. let's hope it doesn't. sir antony sher, it has been lovely to talk to you, many thanks. thank you. it was a fine start for many this

morning, a lot of sunshine around, but soon it began, the rain, courtesy of this weather front, which you can see here. there was also another weather front across the north of scotland which produced snow over the hilltops. the band of rain has reached the far north of england and the far south of scotla nd england and the far south of scotland and northern ireland, with wintry showers over the high ground. a quieter story further south with a few showers and generally for most of us it will be largely frost free. easter weekend is adding very mixed, low pressure always nearby, it will be cold —— looking very mixed or stop sunshine, the best of it on sunday. this is the picture, outbreaks of rain, snow over the high ground of scotland, and a window of fine and dry weather for england and wales before the next

band of rain pushing into the southern counties of england. and on the cool side. saturday, the weather front will bring cloud and outbreaks of rain to england and wales, and a wet day for some, the best of the dry and bright weather for scotland and northern ireland. showers across scotland, wintry over the high ground. we are in between weather systems on easter day, sunday, looking the driest day of the easter weekend, a lot of cloud, a few glimmers of brightness, but to the south we have the next weather front which will be arriving over cornwall and devon to bring wet weather. this is the weather front the sponsor but, it will —— the weather front responsible, and it will be bumping into some cool air, during the whole of the weekend, and as it moves north we are likely to have some snow. we think it will be mainly over the high ground but there could be some wet snow down at lower

levels as it spreads north, but it will quickly turn to rain in the south. probably the best of the weather will be across scotland on easter monday. this snow could be disruptive especially if it chelates down to lower levels. keep it change to local radio for the forecasts. —— keepjune hello, i'm ros atkins, this is 0utside source. 0ne one year to 0ne yearto go one year to go until brexit. we're going to spend the hour looking at the story from every angle. theresa may has toured the nations and has promised to make brexit a success. may has toured the nations and has promised to make brexit a successlj think promised to make brexit a success.” think brexit is going to deliver, a country that will be different but there are real opportunities for us as an independent nation. we will cover the negotiations, the

potential issues.