The last time Kenneth Branagh appeared on a British stage was in the autumn of 2023, dressed like a distant cousin of Fred Flintstone and enunciating words in a manner that can most politely be described as peculiar.
The role was none other than King Lear and Branagh was, once again, directing himself in a production that was crying out to have its madder excesses curbed. My two-star review for this paper was one of the kinder critical responses to the whole doomed enterprise, and I commented sadly that Branagh’s unwise tactic of self-direction had been playing to diminishing returns for years now.
There can be no doubting that Branagh is one of the finest actors this country has produced in the past half-century, yet like too many of those who reach the top in the worlds of theatre and cinema, he appeared to have become untouchable, closed to any outside words of gentle wisdom and thus counterintuitively ploughing an ever less productive furrow.
His West End season of five plays in 2015-6 was a case in point; as Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, he seemed reluctant even to leave the stage when that character takes a second half hiatus. It is no wonder that Judi Dench, with a crisp 15 minutes of playing time as Paulina, took home all the awards, leaving Branagh empty handed.
