Benedict Cumberbatch Read Online Free

into how fame works.
    He clearly excelled at recitation. In March 1994, his penultimate year at Harrow, he almost won the Lady Bourchier Reading Competition, held at the school. In the final round, he read passages from Graham Swift’s prize-winning novel
Waterland
, and from Tobias Smollett’s
Peregrine Pickle.
‘All his readings had colour, while the prosepassages had excellent narrative drive,’ wrote the school magazine. Cumberbatch was placed as a joint runner-up by the special guest adjudicator, ‘Stephen Fry, Esq.’. It gave an early indication that, as well as acting, Cumberbatch was a terrific reader of prose and poetry, a skill which would lead to plenty of voice work years later, especially in radio.
    But there was undoubtedly a pull towards acting which Cumberbatch experienced. Were it not for an unexpected attack of nerves, his screen debut might have happened in his mid-teens. When former pupil Andrew Birkin was busily casting for his film version of Ian McEwan’s
The Cement Garden
, he went back to his old school to seek out new talent. The uneasy subject matter – incest between teenage siblings – caused Cumberbatch some discomfort, especially the prospect of having to take his clothes off. ‘I was terrified. I was really prudish at that age, and I didn’t want anyone seeing what I looked like. So I didn’t audition.’ The chance to share the limelight with a young Charlotte Gainsbourg (Andrew Birkin’s niece) was gone, but the very fact he’d been offered the opportunity to audition made him feel that he might have a future in this acting lark. ‘I think that was the moment when I stumbled into realising that acting could be a thing for life rather than just something I did during term time.’
    * * *
    By his third year at Harrow, it seemed no production would be complete without Benedict Cumberbatch. Whether it wasRussian drama or farce or revue, he was one of the stars of the school’s drama offerings. He had joined the Rattigan Society, named after yet another Old Harrovian: the dramatist Terence Rattigan, who had been one of the giants of British theatre in the 1940s and 50s.
    Though they attended Harrow 65 years apart, Cumberbatch strongly identified with Rattigan. Both had spent much of their early lives in Kensington, they were in the same house at Harrow (The Park), and both spent plenty of time poring over books in the school’s Vaughan Library.
    On first seeing the numerous rows of books, Cumberbatch felt overwhelmed. ‘I thought, I probably won’t have a lifetime long enough to read the first shelf – let alone the first room, let alone the whole fucking library. I’ve always been after the idea of betterment, to understand the world around me.’ His attitude to self-education would later extend into adulthood, where it would be typical for him to research a given role thoroughly.
    The Rattigan Society would visit London regularly to watch plays in the West End. In early 1993, Cumberbatch was entranced by a revival of Rattigan’s
The Deep Blue Sea
, starring Penelope Wilton and directed by Karel Reisz. Indeed, he was blown away by the mix of subtlety and great emotional pull of the play. ‘The big moment. I realised Rattigan had a profound depth. Among all the wit, when the mask slips it’s painfully raw.’
    In June 1994, Cumberbatch made his own splash in a Rattigan revival. Back at Harrow School, he flourished in
The Browning Version
as the Classics master ArthurCrocker-Harris. Written in the late 1940s,
The Browning Version
is set at ‘a Public School in the South of England’, which many have interpreted as being Harrow. ‘ Crocker-Harris ’ character moves between iron resilience and emotional collapse,’ wrote
The Harrovian
in its 18 June issue, ‘and Cumberbatch moved through each stage of his character’s progression with considerable ability. He is to be congratulated on a performance to which he evidently committed himself fully.’ Sixteen years later,