I was lucky enough to play Alan Rickman’s gay lover in a Dusty Hughes play, Bad Language, at Hampstead theatre in the early 1980s, and, while I wasn’t as physically attracted to him as some of your female correspondents (Letters, 15 January), I did find him one of the kindest and most perceptive and intelligent actors I have ever worked with.
Summoned soon after by the ladies in the casting department of Anglia TV, I was disappointed to find that they weren’t looking to cast me, as they spent half an hour raving about Alan, but lamenting that they just never knew how to cast him. It took another “late, great”, Anthony Minghella, to cast him as the romantic lead in Truly, Madly, Deeply for Alan’s screen career to take wing.
Kevin Whately
Aspley Heath, Buckinghamshire