When Gregory Peck played the one-legged Captain Ahab in John Huston's 1956 film adaptation of Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick, he was seen trudging grimly across the deck of the whaling ship Pequod with one wooden leg.

A year later, he starred in Vincente Minelli's screwball comedy Designing Woman with Lauren Bacall, and lo and behold, the actor suddenly had both legs back as smart sports reporter Mike Hagen.

How was that possible?

The process has remained unclear to this day, because nobody was interested in it.

A leg or two legs, in Hollywood it doesn't matter that much.

But Stratford-upon-Avon is not Hollywood.

In Stratford-upon-Avon, someone like Gregory Peck is unlikely to be seen again today.

In Stratford-upon-Avon, a feigned limp is enough, like Shakespeare's Richard III.

The wrong hump

This Richard, the last ruler of the House of Plantagenet, is the ugliest, the most repulsive king of all time in Shakespeare.

But all great actors want to play him.

Laurence Olivier was Richard III, portrayed by Al Pacino, Fritz Kortner, Lars Eidinger and Gert Voss.

They strapped on artificial humps, used a crutch, simulated a clubfoot, let one arm hang limp and powerless and strutted across the stage with a squint and a devious expression.

Neither of them would have been allowed to play the role if the current director of the Royal Shakespeare Company had had his way.

According to Gregory Doran, who is about to step down as director of the company, no physically fit actor should play a character as disadvantaged by nature as Richard.

In other words, only a physically handicapped or handicapped person, in Doran's view, is allowed to portray a drama character who describes himself thus: "Disfigured, neglected, sent ahead of time into this world of breathing, half barely finished, and so lame and it's inappropriate for dogs to bark, I'm just limping along.” Unfortunately, Doran doesn't say a word about the character requirements of the future Richard actors.

Richard is vicious, devious, brutal, mendacious, courageous, power-hungry, determined and of infamous intelligence.

Who could compete?

Don't ask too much of actors either.

It's enough if they pretend. Otherwise what about Prospero or the witches in "Macbeth"?

Word may not have gotten as far as Stratford-upon-Avon, but there are no wizards or witches.

What does exist, however, are "The Three-Legged Rulers."

That's the title of a BBC science fiction series.

Unfortunately without Gregory Peck.