"Patrick Stewart created the best performance of Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra I have ever seen. Patrick understood the role of the triple pillar of the world, reduced to the ‘Strumpet’s fool’, the man no longer able to live up to his own PR, who feels himself dissolving like evaporating clouds. Patrick restored the magnificence of the role in a tragedy so often regarded as ‘her play’.

"Having played Enobarbus twice for the RSC, Patrick Stewart - a veteran RSC performer - agreed to play Antony and returned to the RSC in 2006. It was like a homecoming for Patrick.

"I was there in 2006 to not only see Patrick as Antony at least four times, (it remains my favourite performance of anyone in a Shakespeare play, ever) but also to share the backstage corridors. That was the year of my first lead Shakespeare roles at the RSC, as Benedick in Much Ado and the Bastard in King John. It was terrifying of course.

"Patrick saw our Much Ado and cornered me soon after to give me his urgent support. And that’s the right word, it was urgent, he wanted to be certain I knew how good the show was, and in his opinion, my work was. We had a long conversation and he wanted me to throw away any sense of imposter syndrome I might have.

"He went on to invite me to stay at his home to rehearse a poetry recital with him and Harriet Walter. The warmth of his validation and support shifted my life completely. I know he did the same for many, many actors.

"I will never forget and I will always be grateful. A comrade and a worker and an angel carved in steel."

Joseph Millson, RSC Associate Artist