One has played great Shakespearean roles including Othello and Macbeth. The other is best known for his uncanny portrayals of real people from Tony Blair to David Frost and Brian Clough.
Now Patrick Stewart and Michael Sheen, two of Britain's finest actors, are starring as Shakespeare and Hamlet in a new season at the Young Vic.
Stewart, 70, who began his career with the Royal Shakespeare Company, plays the Bard in his final years in Edward Bond's Bingo next month. The hotly anticipated Hamlet, with Sheen in the title role, opens in October.
It follows David Tennant and Jude Law's stints as the Dane: the role is considered a definitive point in a young actor's career. Sheen, 41, said he was coming to it later in life and wanted to make it "difficult and jagged again, unsettling and uncomfortable and disorientating." Director Ian Rickson makes his Shakespearean debut after Sheen approached him for the job.
The actor said: "The opportunity to tell this story has come up from time to time but it never felt right. Working with someone as inspiring and supportive as Ian, in a space full of possibility like The Young Vic, on a play that speaks to me now more than ever, made me feel this was the right time."
Stewart, who was in Hamlet with Tennant in 2008, has received praise for Bingo, which moves to London from the Minerva in Chichester. David Lan, artistic director at the theatre in Waterloo, said: "It's too long since Patrick played here, 25 years ago in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? He is a great Shakespearean actor. Now we have a chance to see him as Shakespeare.
"I've long wanted to have Michael and Ian with us. Hamlet can't help but be one of the events of the year." Nikolai Gogol's Russian comedy The Government Inspector, with Julian Barratt of The Mighty Boosh and Doon Mackichan of Smack The Pony, opens in June. Martin McDonagh's comedy The Beauty Queen of Leenane returns in July.
Street Scene, which won an Evening Standard award for best musical, is on in September. Priority booking for the new season opens tomorrow and public booking starts on February 15. Ring the theatre on 020 7922 2922.
