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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 ....
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, ....
Real violence erupted on the streets. i mean, the idea of the father in the film being threatened by the protestant hard men for refusing to go along with the gangs and threatening his catholic neighbours, was that something that directly happened to your father? there was a sense, you couldn t be in that part of belfast at that time, at least through my nine year old eyes you couldn t be, unless there was some sense of threat and the possibility of intimidation. and are they really vivid memories that you have? i mean, just taking yourself back to those moments, of those paving stones being dug up and the barricades being erected, was there a sense in your mind, as a young kid, that something very dangerous was happening, that there was some kind of weird seismic shift happening on the streets outside? yes, because for a while, what had been really a sort of wonderland where the street where you lived was your wild west town, it was your castles, it was your place for dragons, it was ....
Became somewhere that you had to check in and out of, suddenly, you had to sign to leave your own street and go through a barricade and a sort of primitive checkpoint charlie. what i was aware of was being put on a high alert so, as it were, your emotional engine was revving really high and it was exhausting. that s what i remember, and for everyone, it was absolutely exhausting, and on every side. and families were moving in and out of streets, you know, it was a time of tremendous change and also where the media and the explosion of everything in terms of social activity and political activity in the mid to late 60s was being reflected and shouting out loud from the televisions and from the radio, and so the sense of being in a sort of tumult was very, very palpable. were you scared? most certainly scared. i mean, there s a scene at the beginning of the film ....