Pygmalion at the Old Vic

I saw an interview with Antony Sher once where he said his acting approach was to go to the character rather than bringing the character to himself. By this he meant that he actually "acted" - changed his voice and speech patterns and appearance and movement and so on to match the character rather than amplifying things already in himself which suited the character. It is an unusual approach these days where some form of method acting based on personal experience is usually applied. The result was that Sher was quite different when he played Lear and Falstaff whereas Robert Stephens was quite similar. The criticism of that approach - which was made particularly of Olivier - is that it relies on pure technique rather than emotion. And indeed Robert Stephens was better in both of those roles for that reason.

Anyway, Bertie Carvel is in this tradition - his performance as Higgins and as Dalgliesh (on TV) are not even similar, and you could name another half dozen roles he has played which are different again. Related to that observation I was wondering what Shakespeare role I'd like to see him in (I think he's only ever played Macbeth) but it is hard to decide because he is so protean.