Antony Sher pushed the boundaries of Shakespeare’s plays

HIS FATHER had already started the car and was reversing down the drive. “Hang on a moment,” the young man said, and hopped out. All morning he’d been putting on a brave face about flying to London and starting drama school, but now he ran back to the house that glowed with Cape Town’s blue, blue light, and knelt next to his little dog, Tickey. He stroked her tight, confused face, let her lick his hand. Tickey was runtish, dark, ugly, scared—him in animal form, he always said. She’d been found as a stray and he liked to tell her his fears: about being small and needy and bad at sports, about being drawn to boys, about not fitting in—in school, in his own country, in the world.