I knew exactly when the fever had struck. I had been reading Hamlet in an English class at school. Everyone else stumbled, puzzling over the strange words. Then it had been my turn, and the language had suddenly woken in me, so that my heart and lungs and tongue and throat were on fire. Later, I understood that this was why people spoke of Shakespeare as a god. At the time, I felt like weeping. Somebody had released me from dumbness, from utter isolation. I knew that I could live inside these words, that they would give me a shape, a shell. I had no idea, then, that I would never play Hamlet…. Furthermore, I’m an actor, and in a good year I earn eleven thousand pounds for dressing up as a carrot.

In a Dark Wood