 Shaw remained active in his later years ; along with fellow Royal Shakespeare Company actors Ian Richardson , John Nettles , Martin Best and Ann Firbank , he engaged in discussions and workshops with acting teachers and students in the early 1980s . Although appearances in films became far less common in his later career , he received much acclaim for his performance as the Cold War spy Sharp in Clare Peploe 's High Season at the New York Film Festival in 1987 ; The San Diego Union @-@ Tribune said Shaw played the role with " endearing , sweet gravity " . One of his last performances was in the Christmas season of 1988 and 1989 , when he played the wizard in a stage production of The Wizard of Oz at the Barbican Centre . The Times said audiences were " delighted to recognise his honeyed threats from behind the great carapace that disguised the Wizard of Oz " . Shaw became an honorary life @-@ member at the Garrick Club , which included such past members as writers Charles Dickens , J.M. Barrie , Kingsley Amis and A.A. Milne ; artists Dante Gabriel Rossetti and John Everett Millais ; and composer Edward Elgar . 
