SIR PATRICK STEWART: A REPORT FROM A FUGITIVE.

People started calling him Sir PATSTEW. I suppose that’s when I remembered how to spell his name. Stewart or Stuart I’d wonder, on hearing his name mentioned. He popped up here, there, before STAR TREK.
   And I’m sure he’d be the first to say there was definitely a before and after moment with his entry into a science fiction franchise. But I’ve only seen a handful of episodes of THE NEXT GENERATION. So there isn’t terribly much of that to go on, when talking about the actor here.
   Instead, I think of his performance as Scrooge. Now there’s a character for an actor to sink all kinds of teeth into. The cinematic Scrooge is always going to be Alastair Sim. When it comes to television productions, though…
   I’d say George C. Scott has a bluster to his performance that fits well within the confines of that production. And it’s a fine thing to watch before you move on to Patrick Stewart’s contrasting approach. Stewart’s performance is well-informed, following his wild idea to bring Scrooge to life on the stage in a one-man show.
   With that background, Stewart’s television Scrooge is very much about the thawing of an icy heart and how you reach that point in the tale. Scrooge, by the end, kept Christmas well. Stewart did right by Scrooge in that TV production.
   But we should have expected no less from an actor who went into his roles well-prepared. He was known for doing wild things like actually reading the script before turning up to a job. Five minutes into the future there’ll be convincing artificial actors who never have to read a script that wasn’t even written by human hands.
   And that’s okay. We’ll just use bots to watch that stuff while we fuck off and do something else. Anything else. Leave the artificially intelligent actors to the artificially intelligent audiences and the artificially intelligent critics who bark at the digital caravan even though it has artificially moved on.
  We’ll be over here in the cheap seats watching the real thing. Until the cheap seats become more expensive, as is the way of all things.
   If you peer carefully at the screen, you’ll see him in EXCALIBUR. It’s easy to get lost inside John Boorman’s lusty production of Arthurian excess. But he is there. Stewart has a memorable turn in science fiction with his appearance in LIFEFORCE. I won’t spoil that if you haven’t seen it. One of those movies that must be seen to be disbelieved.
   Speaking of getting lost in things. It is very easy to get lost inside a TV show. To be stuck with a role. Playing a starship captain in any science fiction series can do that to you. But the risk is far greater with STAR TREK. An order of magnitude greater.
   Patrick Stewart recognised his role for what it was – once the surprise impact hit him with the force of a supernova – and he had the grace to accept he could run with it. Use it. Especially to further his Shakespearean cause. He’s remembered for many things. But particularly for reading Shakespeare to the world when Covid came along.
   With the starship captain under his belt, superhero movies beckoned. Then he was Professor Charles Xavier. Decades of using his Shakespearean delivery gave Stewart’s voice a great challenge: embodying a character in one word. If you remember his version of Professor X for anything, it’s for the word mutation. That kicks off a whole franchise.
   And, true, a very lumpy stop-start franchise it is. But there was deep redemption with the passage of time, and the stunning pairing of Sir Patrick Stewart with Hugh Jackman in a story about superheroes grown old.
   It is very easy to get lost in, to disappear into, an effects-heavy movie…and then, if such a property is successful, even easier to disappear into an entire effects-heavy movie franchise.
   But people turned up to those films to see what Patrick Stewart would do with the character. Often you’d find his voice was the best effect in a scene. Shakespearean actor is described as bringing Shakespearean attitude and atmosphere to the production. From an actor who portrayed Shakespeare, as well as Shakespeare’s characters, did you expect anything else?
   As I haven’t seen very much of his STAR TREK career, I’m struggling to say anything in that particular direction. Initially he struggled with the idea of doing a science fiction TV show. The big thing about his moving into the STAR TREK franchise was the belief that the show would fall flat on its arse rather quickly, leading to cancellation.
   If lucky, there’d be a cult audience interested in a belated release to home entertainment formats. Keeping a candle burning for a short-lived blip on the TV landscape. No. Stewart’s long TV contract was fulfilled when fandom embraced the new show. He still had doubts when it came time to consider the leap into yet more science fiction. Professor X gave him much to do in the science fiction realm.
   There are those in the science fiction world who reject the hand dealt them. Yes, grumpy old Nigel Kneale is on my mind again. Stewart took to science fiction with good grace. And a sense of humour. The history of science fiction is the history of dressing social issues up against a cosmic background, with rockets and ray guns thrown in. He was just right for STAR TREK.
   To watch Shakespeare in action, just go and steep yourself in a movie called FORBIDDEN PLANET. Its influence on the original STAR TREK is notable. The line that leads you on a merry wander through Shakespeare to FORBIDDEN PLANET and over into STAR TREK is a line that is as wide as it is deep. FORBIDDEN PLANET has its roots in THE TEMPEST. And Stewart was certainly very familiar with that stormy tale.
   STAR TREK scales many Shakespearean heights. I’ll limit my talk to two. In the movie STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, a very game cast romps through assorted Shakespeare quotes: in particular, during a memorable dinner. The other Shakespearean height is the inclusion of Patrick Stewart as part of the ongoing mission to explore strange new worlds and franchise elements. I keep forgetting he was in DUNE. No, not that one. The other one.
   I think Patrick would question the idea that Shakespeare is best experienced in the original Klingon. His friend Sir Ian McKellen warned him against doing this science fiction TV show. That view changed. And even McKellen was persuaded to join the mutant saga when the time came.
   It’s great to see the two knightly actors sparring from scene to scene. In the wake of Sir Patrick’s death, the internet has (not for the first time) decided to throw a protective cordon around Sir Ian. As I write this, we’ve yet to see the two of them make what must surely be a bittersweet fare-thee-well in another episode of a comic book franchise.
   One word introduced Professor X. But what of the silent character role? I must ask. From a man known for his Shakespearean delivery. His voice was a great part of his career. Patrick Stewart gave a non-speaking performance twice, in connected works for television.
   Both were adaptations of espionage stories by John le Carré: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and Smiley’s People. He has limited time on screen. Says not a word. Uses the way he sits or walks to convey character. For he is playing the Soviet spymaster…
   Karla.
   It is a role which requires a lot of thinking. Scheming. Playing a character who is under arrest. Shackled. Destined for the executioner’s block. And yet, in a complex flashback scene, with no dialogue, he must convey the ultimate menace. As I've observed elsewhere, he is the story’s bogeyman. The villain. Main architect of the organised chaos fuelling the plot.
   More than that. The plot itself is further fuelled in the flashback scene. He’s barely on the screen for five minutes. The talking is done by Sir Alec Guinness. Stewart must react to all the spy trade talk. Or not react to it. In the character’s head is the whole plot of the story, and spymaster Karla fights hard to give nothing away.
   Doing all the talking, his opposite number in the tale, Smiley, gives far too much away. After this brief scene, Karla slips through everyone’s fingers and he is sent home to Russia to die in front of a firing squad. But he’s a lucky bastard, and goes on to plague everyone with his schemes within schemes.
   A commentary follows, on what the character must have been thinking during that meeting in the flashback. Indeed, it is Smiley’s meeting with Karla in the past that turns Smiley into a suspect as Karla’s potential collaborator when the TV show starts.
   Smiley is under suspicion along with the other suspects. Not kept apart from them. He’s the only suspect who was in the same room as Karla. Maybe they were best buddies.
   They weren’t. Patrick Stewart returned, wordlessly, using the way he walked, gestured, to convey the same character under different circumstances in SMILEY’S PEOPLE. Again, one short scene. To many, Sir Patrick Stewart was a starship captain. Or a professor interested in mutation. Scrooge. He was a top-notch scrooge. Watch him in that role. Make it so.
   But for me, I keep coming back to this. He’s always going to be the villain who wordlessly stole a scene, and a cigarette lighter, from Sir Alec Guinness.