SIR Kenneth Branagh has revealed that he was offered a life-changing audition by Pitlochry Festival Theatre right at the start of his career.

In an interview with The Herald Magazine tomorrow, he recalls that in 1982 the theatre offered him an audition to become an acting stage manager at the theatre.

“That would have been a total result,” Branagh said of the offer.

In the end Branagh was offered a big break in London and didn’t pursue the opportunity, but he would have loved the chance to be part of the theatre’s summer season.

“Six plays in six days, I’d have died and gone to heaven,” he said. “You do the hairy person one night, you do the Scottish accent …”

The Herald:

Branagh’s new film Belfast opens next week and in tomorrow’s cover story interview in The Herald Magazine he reveals how the film draws on his own childhood in the Northern Irish capital at the start of the Troubles in 1969.