There are certain actors, by no means a large percentage, who can elevate the work in which they are performing with just their presence, their command of movement and the richness and depth of their vocal delivery. Patrick Stewart’s cup, so to speak, ranneth over. Though a trained Shakespearean actor at heart who enlivened what this once schoolboy often found impenetrable dialogue, he was also adept at a whole range of different characters in different genres which he found later in his career after a certain starship captain propelled him at warp nine into the big time. He was a mature 47 when he started shooting the pilot of Star Trek The Next Generation, unaware, like his character, he was about to go where he’d never been before…
With Jean-Luc Picard, the creators of The Next Generation chose a character very different from the womanising, gung-ho Captain of the original series. Picard was a diplomat with intellectual depth and a staunch moral code and he ran a tight ship but was beloved by his crew. Over seven years, this man delivered to our screens a real hero, a humanist, someone admirable, the best that humanity could offer the stars. The following quote from a YouTube video says it all. Where are all our role models today?
The broad arena of Star Trek allowed Stewart many opportunities to show the multiple facets of the good captain. There are many Picard moments that stood out but I’ll name just four from memory… Defending Data’s rights as an individual in The Measure of a Man, a startlingly great episode, he concludes “A single Data is a curiosity. But thousands of Datas… Isn’t that becoming… …a race? And won’t we be judged by how we treat that race? Your Honour, Starfleet was founded to seek out new life. Well, there it sits.” His performance as a torture victim in Chain of Command Part 2 was exemplary. You felt every shock of agony and unlike Kirk, Picard admits his weaknesses and vulnerabilities. “There are four lights!” And then there’s the extraordinary The Inner Light when Stewart is tasked to play a lifetime spent as an inhabitant of an alien culture, long dead as a memorial to their passing. Never has a man holding a flute been so emotional. Finally, he sits down to play poker in the very last episode of the series, All Good Things. Just before he deals the cards at his first appearance at a poker session with the main crew, he has a wistful look and says “I should have done this a long time ago…”
One last acknowledgement has to include my traumatic introduction to the man’s work… One of the great things about classic literature is that if it includes sex and violence, it can be shown on screen and thought to be relevant, necessary even, protected by its own exalted status as long as it was tastefully executed. Poor choice of words perhaps. My teenage introduction to sex and violence was all wrapped in one package and because it was ‘worthy’ I was allowed to watch it at 15 years old. In 12 gloriously acted episodes of I, Claudius, I saw my first decapitated head… “I cured his cough…”, my first half-naked female, a sleight of hand decapitation with a scream of protest, “Not my head!” followed by a super-effective whip pan. There were many unthinkable things that you could not even suggest on screen today. A baby was put to the sword in its crib and one of the Roman soldiers balked at killing a young girl because killing virgins was a religious taboo. His commander’s response has lived with me for decades… “Then make sure she’s not a virgin when you kill her.” I shudder at the memory. In 1976 we had no idea what this cast would go on to do (and what a cast) but despite being in only a handful of episodes, I will never forget Sejanus. A duplicitous, ambitious soul, Sejanus wormed his way to the very top, trusted by the Emperor Tiberius to do his dirty work. When word got out that he was plotting against Tiberius himself, the emperor ordered the execution of his whole family and anyone aligned with him. I knew Patrick Stewart was an actor, as we all do whenever we watch a screen but because of his command of the drama, his utterly believable ruthlessness, presence and subtlety (just watch his face when he realises he and his family are doomed) I knew I was watching an absolute master of his craft.
Whenever I saw him on screen, regardless of role or genre, I always had to stop what I was doing and admire his skill and charisma. But I also managed to see his one-man performance of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol in the 90s in which he played every role and was mesmerising just as he was in 2009 when I was lucky enough to see him and Ian McKellen strutting their stuff in Beckett’s Waiting for Godot at my nearest theatre, in 2009. R.I.P Patrick Stewart. He leaves a huge hole in space but his star will still be shining for many years to come.