in the book you talk about approaching adrian noble who ran the rsc in the 90s about playing the pat rafteras 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 t