I'd see him again for rehearsals at 10

I'd see him again for rehearsals at 10.30 and I'd be shattered and he'd be clean, polished and bright."Hands also recalls how Howard could pass unnoticed through the fans clamouring at the stage-door after a performance of Henry V Howard's acting involves an astonishing transformation. Off-stage, if you didn't know better, you'd guess him to be a prep-school classics master. His linen jacket matches his hamster-coloured hair and his nicotine-stained fingers and the hamster- like impression persists as he blinks, shy and short-sighted, in the sunlight, anxiously clutching an M&S plastic bag (his stock of cigarette packs) and smiling in a glassy, wobbly way. He couldn't be more diffident or shambling if he was playing a part.

Indeed, Howard is so low-key and downbeat, he would make Eeyore look flighty by comparison. The effect, not that any effect is intended, is delightfully endearing.Then he speaks and you can't quite believe your ears because the voice is nearly as good as you get when he is more obviously trying. Irving Wardle caught its range perfectly when he described Howard's Macbeth "There's no more thrilling sound on the English stage. The sardonic croak, the lyrical caress, the one-man brass sections, the whinnying cry of horror.

They are all there." Even in normal conversation he swills words like mouthwash, then hovers for ages around one note or on one tone, giving equal weight to ev-er-y syll-a-ble in the sentence It's rather hypnotic And it's obviously an acquired taste. Vocal magnificence to Wardle's ear can be, to others, hollow histrionics, Howard's parody of himself. Of the same performance, Charles Spencer wrote, "He uses [his voice] like a showy soloist giving a display of vacuous virtuosity. In the great speech at the end, when he considers all that he has lost through his own evil, he breaks up the line about 'honour, love, obedience, troops of friends' so unnaturally that you fear he might have suffered a minor stroke. What's missing is real pressure of thought or feeling behind the words."Howard twitches a bit at the mention of critics and grabs another fag "One can be criticised for overdoing it and one does care.