PROSPERO                             Silence! One word more

Shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee. What,

An advocate for an impostor? Hush.

Thou think’st there is no more such shapes as he,

Having seen but him and Caliban. Foolish wench,

To th’ most of men, this is a Caliban,

And they to him are angels.

MIRANDA                                                      My affections

Are then most humble. I have no ambition

To see a goodlier man. (1.2.476-484)

Prospero, still being fierce, playing the stern father, showing everyone who’s in control. Is there a glimmer of a hint that he’s knowingly putting on a show in the simply ridiculous one word more shall make me chide thee, if not hate thee? Perhaps – a gap for an actor who doesn’t want to play this man as simply shouty and angry and bullying to squeeze through. Perhaps. Impostor is, after all, entirely Prospero’s fantasy, and he knows – surely? – that it’s ludicrous. There is more scope for humour in the affectionate – possibly? – thou think’st there is no more such shapes as he, having seen but him and Caliban. This is entirely true, and Prospero’s riffing on it – if you’d seen more men you’d realise that there’s nothing special about Ferdinand, it’s only in comparison with Caliban that you think he’s all that. (Note to casting directors: surely this has to be demonstrably untrue. Ferdinand has to be a plausible romantic lead and, underwritten as he is – like so many romantic leads – he probably needs to be, well, hot. There is no way that the other men of the cast can all be angels, paragons of virtue and beauty, by comparison.) But Miranda is wonderfully, typically steadfast, as well as starry-eyed: I have no ambition to see a goodlier man. This is the man for me, no matter where on the Caliban-angel scale of manly awesomeness he might ultimately be located. (The casualness with which both of them treat Caliban as the opposite of goodly, the opposite of human, the byword for the ugly and the base…)