that is the has gone on improving. that is the real importance of the story. the london rate has gone up. that is serious and bad. but the important bit is new york has gone down so much. a lot of this is knife crime. cressida dig said in her view the internet fires this, because rows between gangs of kids on the internet spiral more easily and quickly. here is a question - how do you get the message across when it's old wrinklies like trying to tell young people and often none white young people and often none white young people and often none white young people about their reality. do young people about their reality. do you think the message will get gci’oss. you think the message will get across. no, but sadiq khan has done good work with former gang members who are the sort of people who can get the message across. are you sure? the essential part is the number killings in london has been quite alarming. it is not unnoticed

by the metropolitan commissioner. finally the independent. at last. you're excited. it is a lovely picture of stephen hawkings funeral. it is eddie redmayne reading the lesson. have you seen the film. no. it isa lesson. have you seen the film. no. it is a private funeral, but thousands turned up. there are other pictures around during the day. very moving. the coffin was carried by the porters from the university. so we are back again. are we? we are extending your work period over easter. i thought you were going to

say by popular request. john one and john two, how is that? that is it for the papers. we are back at 11.30. to look at stories tomorrow. next it is meet the author. stay tuned. sir antony sher‘s portrayal of king learfor 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 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 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 you 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 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, 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 sha kespeare's's writing? because he creates these astonishing characters. will you be able to interpret them in a meaningful way?

the production is directed by the artistic director of the rsc, greg doran, who is also your partner and 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 were made to the text, and i wondered, is that normal or do you 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 director 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. interns of casting, i wouldn't 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 part? 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 with your faulterin health 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 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, falstaff 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 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, 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. 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. hello there, conditions have been improving through the day. it has been turning drierfor improving through the day. it has been turning drier for many. improving through the day. it has been turning drierfor many. the rain reserved to eastern parts of the uk. still wintry over the higher

ground. but many places have seen scenes like this with a lot of cloud. but some sunny spells like in cambridge. some of the best sunshine was in the north—west of scotland. because we have high pressure pushing this weather front across the eastern side of the country into the eastern side of the country into the irish sea. but it will take a while as we head through the course of night. it will stay damp in central and eastern parts of scotla nd central and eastern parts of scotland and england with sleet and snow on the the hills. further west drier and it will turn cold with a frost developing. temperatures down to minus six in scotland. high pressure builds in for easter day. most pressure builds in for easter day. m ost pla ces pressure builds in for easter day. most places should be dry. a cold start for many with frost around. a lot of sunshine around. particularly across scotland and northern ireland and western parts of wales and england. the cloud will build up and

a greyer afternoon. it will remain cool a greyer afternoon. it will remain cool, with some showers in the east. and then turning wet and windy later in devon and cornwall. all courtesy of this next area of low pressure. it has mild air moving in behind, but ahead of it this rain will pushing into some cold air so we will see a mixture of rain, sleet and snow. snow to the higher ground in the south. but snow to lower levels in central and northern wales and england and scotland. and northern ireland. this could cause problems. further south sunshine and showers and it will turn milder. the far north of scotland will stay dry. easter monday, if you have any travel plans, bear the snow in mind. it will cause disruption. so keep tuned to bbc local radio. heading into tuesday a different feel with much milder southerly winds and a

typical mixture of sunshine and heavy showers in england and wales and some heavy down pours in northern ireland too. but the temperatures range from nine to 1a 01’ temperatures range from nine to 1a or 15 celsius. this is bbc news. the headlines — two men accused of carrying out beheadings for the so—called islamic state complain that they won't get a fair trial after losing their british citizenship. the mother of one victim, james foley, says britain and the us must hold the men to account as the uk resists calls for them to face trial here. i think there may be some argument that the international community should be working together to see if individuals who have committed these crimes can be brought tojustice. the senior labour party official, embroiled in an anti—semitism row, has stepped down from the party's ruling executive. more british diplomats have been ordered to leave moscow by the kremlin in the continuing row over the use of a nerve agent in salisbury.

also in the next hour, the funeral for professor stephen hawking