He is widely considered to be the greatest ever English actor, and now he is coming back to one of his old stamping grounds. Nick Morrison reports on the return of Edmund Kean.

THE last time he prowled this stage, the crowd had reason to be restless at the delay to the start of the second act. They may have been even more restless had they known the cause of the hold-up: prostitutes had visited his dressing room in the interval, and the curtain could not rise until he was done with them.

It was September 1819, and the great Edmund Kean was giving a breathtaking performance in The Iron Chest at Richmond's Theatre Royal. But as much as he was garlanded with praise, he was followed by scandal in equal measure.

He was a drunken megalomaniac, with an unwavering belief in his own destiny; but he was also one of the greatest actors of all time, the man who revolutionised the English stage, to whom all subsequent actors owe a tremendous debt.

Almost 200 years on, Kean is once again to appear on that Richmond stage, this time in the shape of Alister O'loughlin, the author and performer of a one-man play about the theatrical genius.

The play, The Tragedian, is the first in a trilogy, and charts the early part of Kean's career, from standing on street corners reciting Shakespeare to feed his family at the age of five, to touring the provincial theatres, including Richmond, as an unknown. It was a period of his life which was a source of deep resentment.

"He believed he was on a path to become the best actor in the country, and felt that every small job in the meantime was almost a deliberate ploy to hold him back," says O'loughlin.

"He had this Napoleonic streak - he knew where he was meant to be and if you were not helping him to get there, you were an enemy standing in his way. When he acted, it was acting his revenge on the critics."

This passion and anger was put to great effect in his performances, so much so that when he finally reached the Drury Lane theatre in London in 1814, then the most important theatre in the world, his Shylock was an overnight sensation.

Previously, it was customary for Shakespeare to be declaimed by a lantern-jawed hero standing in the middle of the stage. But Kean brought both a naturalism and a physicality to his roles which was to astonish and captivate contemporary audiences, and transform the way actors across the world approached their craft.

Brought up in the theatre, Kean was taught to dance, sing, sword-fight and tumble. He learned how to use his body and how to occupy the entire stage - techniques which were startling to audiences used to seeing their actors remain stationary.

"The early reviews say he rushed around the stage, but it was only after a couple of seasons that people realised that while that was true, he was doing the identical performance, night after night. It was completely choreographed," says O'louglin.

Perhaps more importantly, he invested emotion in his roles. To early 19th century theatre-goers, this was astounding stuff.

"He was a man who felt things more extremely than most people, and certainly he would display his emotion. Coming out of this tradition where everything was so codified and had to be done a certain way, he broke every rule and made something so much more passionate and alive. He changed British theatre forever," says O'loughlin.

"What we consider naturalism stems from melodrama, and melodrama would not have existed without Kean. When Kean did naturalism it became the norm, right up to the present day.

"He was a passionate and a tragically romantic figure, very much a man of his age, and I think he was certainly the greatest actor this country ever produced."

Once he had been given his big opportunity, there was no looking back, and Kean became a star in an age before stars. He caused riots wherever he played, as people fought for a ticket, and then fought again to get into the pit, the most desirable spot whenever Kean was in town. Even the rich theatre patrons abandoned their boxes to get into the pit, so they could see the great man's eyes.

Such was his popularity, that the managers of the Richmond theatre felt able to bump up the price of the tickets for his 1819 appearance: a seat in the box was four shillings, the pit was three shillings and even the gallery was a shilling. It was still a packed house.

The adulation continued even as he was enveloped by scandal, despite his drunkenness and his arrogance. He may have been an unlikeable character, but still they loved him.

And The Tragedian, directed by Miranda Henderson, does not skimp on revealing the less savoury side to Kean's character.

"Speaking to people after the show, they say this guy was a real bastard, but they really wanted him to win. He was not this nice bloke, he was in some ways extremely unlikeable, but he was also very charming," says O'loughlin.

"We have a responsibility to bring out those sides of him that were attractive, but also not to tidy him up.

"But the reason people loved him is because he was uncompromising and he was good. He was to theatre what Byron was to poetry and what Turner was to painting."

For O'loughlin, next week's visit to Richmond's Georgian Theatre Royal will be the first time he has performed the play on a stage where Kean also acted.

"For us it is a real honour to be going into this building, impersonating Kean on the stage he played on, and there is such a potential to learn from this experience, to really get a sense of how quiet you can be and still get to everybody, how to incorporate the people in the boxes without losing the people at the front," he says.

"It is going to be terrifically exciting to be there and to really get a taste of what was normal for the actors of those days."

It will also be the first time it has not been performed in the round, necessitating some staging changes to try to retain the intimacy with the audience which was Kean's trademark.

The visit will also be a chance to see some of the theatre's artefacts, including Kean's snuff box, but for O'loughlin the stage is the thing.

"It goes beyond anything you can collect," he says. "To go into a theatre that still has the stage where Kean performed... I got two photographs from the theatre's website and I've spent the last six months looking at them, trying to put myself in there. Now I'm going to do it."

* The Tragedian: The Rise to Fame of Edmund Kean is at the Georgian Theatre Royal, Richmond, from Tuesday, November 2 to Saturday, November 6, 7.30pm. Tickets £2-£10.50. Box office: (01748) 825252.