Eyewitnesses: When Jacobi Met Burton.

Derek Jacobi talks to The Observer on the occasion of his first Lear and offers this touching anecdote I've not heard before about meeting his childhood Hamlet, Richard Burton:

"it must have been 1977, I did a couple of days on a film with Burton and I reminded him of this schoolboy Hamlet and he said, very sweetly, that yes, he remembered. And he said, 'What are you doing now?' And I said, 'Well I'm about to play Hamlet at the Old Vic.' And he said, 'I'll come and see you.' And he did. And he came around afterwards and said, 'Do you want to go out for dinner?' And I said, yes, great, and as we were walking out of the dressing room, he said, 'Do you mind if we go and stand on the stage? I haven't stood on that stage for 25 years.' So we stood on the stage and I said, 'As a schoolboy, I sat up there and watched you playing Hamlet on this stage.'"