The celebrated actor has long struggled with the murder and dismemberment at the heart of Titus Andronicus. Now, at 64, he is finally tackling a play that ‘teeters on the edge of acceptability’ – but he’s made a few changesSimon Russell Beale finds it scary to play Shakespeare’s high-status characters, “the sort where you walk on stage and everyone bows”. It is surprising, given he is one of the nation’s foremost theatre actors, a king of his own realm, but also ironic because he has played most of Shakespeare’s alpha-men already: from Hamlet and Lear to Macbeth, Prospero and a brace of Richards.Still, they’re difficult, he insists. “I think you need a huge amount of confidence.” Continue reading...