Funeral, i think it was 1965, seeing it on the television and just being told about the great man. The World Cup Final of 1966, where the nation stopped, and in our own household, my brother had a sort of flirtation with meningitis which was very dramatic, as you know, those can be fora minute, and then he was fine, thank goodness. But i watched the World Cup Final in a neighbours house and ijust remember in both those cases, in belfast, as i was, i was very aware of a national event, or at least it seemed to galvanise everybody and everything, and i was looking at images that said, the world is watching. Wow. And you mentioned belfast there. Some people, i think, are still surprised when they hear that you grew up in working class belfast. Uhhuh. And youve now written and directed a film called belfast. Uhhuh. How autobiographical a film is it . Well, its seen through the eyes of nine year old buddy. Its seen at 50 years distance from me. So inevitably, not everything happened absolut
So, this is radio drama studio. Hello, im john wilson. Welcome to this cultural life, a radio four podcast in which i ask leading creative figures about the influences and inspirations that have fired their artistic imagination. My guest in this episode is sir kenneth branagh. A huge talent, a star of stage and screen for more than four decades now. Hes an actor, director, writer and film maker whose credits range from hamlet to tenet, from henry v to thor. We spoke in the very atmospheric radio drama studio of bbc broadcasting house. Ken, welcome to this cultural life. Thank you. A show about cultural inspiration, cultural influences. What is your earliest cultural memory, do you think . Something that had a big impact . I think, early doors, i can remember Winston Churchills funeral, i think it was 1965, seeing it on the television and just being told about the great man. The World Cup Final of 1966, where the nation stopped, and in our own household, my brother had a sort of flirtat
So, this is a Radio Drama Studio. Hello, im john wilson. Welcome to this cultural life, a radio four podcast in which i ask leading creative figures about the influences and inspirations that have fired their artistic imagination. My guest in this episode is sir kenneth branagh. A huge talent, a star of stage and screen for more than four decades now. Hes an actor, director, writer and film maker, whose credits range from hamlet to tenet, from henry v to thor. We spoke in the very atmospheric Radio Drama Studio of bbc broadcasting house. Ken, welcome to this cultural life. Thank you. A show about cultural inspiration, cultural influences. What is your earliest cultural memory, do you think . Something that had a big impact . I think, early doors, i can remember Winston Churchills funeral, i think it was 1965, seeing it on the television and just being told about the great man. The World Cup Final of 1966, where the nation stopped. And in our own household, my brother had a sort of flir
they said, very nice, son. you ll be all right. and that was an amazing personal moment. then, i go back up, we get changed, we come down, it felt as though i shook hands with everybody in england on the way down, and they all shook hands with everybody else in england! and the kind of the excitement. for all the people who weren t so called professionals, they were the ones who were completely and utterly lit up with the joy of this and so, you couldn t then get, you know, all worked up. for all of us, we had to do it was a sense of such unbelievable pride, and you saw bradley wiggins out there and he starts it all off, and then you thought, my god, this is an amazing moment! of course, i m not going to mess this up! and somehow, even if i did, i ll make something up, i don t know! but in the end, it worked out all right and i thought after that, you know, you probably shouldn t get too worked up about stuff after this . so, i think that probably takes the biscuit. your bigg
takes the biscuit. your biggest ever audience, i guess? yeah. thinking back, you did the caliban speech from the tempest, was it on the gielgud record that you borrowed? it was. it was! is it there? so it goes all the way back there? yeah, yeah, absolutely, 100%. ken, you ve enjoyed, what, more than four decades of work on stage and screen and you re still continuing to work, what drives you on, creatively? the pursuit of excellence. from my point of view, i m at a point in my life where i ve acquired an enormous amount of experience and the idea of being able to understand how to apply that in the pursuit of that phenomenon of somehow letting the inspirational happen, if you can get yourself to the point of lift off to do something with great writing that lets, you know, has a chance to head somewhere towards the sublime in the minds of the audience, it s pretty elusive. it s pretty elusive! but it s an exciting challenge. when i see it, i m thrilled by it, and it always makes me want