The Dresser

Norman (Ian McKellen) has one job tonight, which is to get his employer on stage as King Lear in a small English theatre during the war. The curtain is up in an hour, the sirens are wailing, and Sir (Anthony Hopkins), the actor-manager, is nowhere to be found. Richard Eyre follows Norman through the backstage scramble, a man who has spent his life dressing another man's greatness and cannot picture doing anything else.