Benedict Cumberbatch

by Justin Lewis

  * * *

  To the Ends of the Earth was broadcast in July 2005. Like Sherlock’s first series five years later, it surprised some people by premiering in high summer. Surely, given all the money spent on it, it would have been better to launch in the autumn when TV viewing figures are traditionally much higher? But rather than pack the peak-time schedules with repeats, the BBC had crammed summertime with new series.

  While some critics reduced To the Ends of the Earth to the status of a period drama Big Brother at sea, Nancy Banks-Smith at the Guardian compared it with a maritime BBC favourite of the past, which in 1974 had guest starred one Tim Carlton. ‘To those with warm memories of The Onedin Line,’ she wrote, ‘it will all come as something of a cold shower. This is the Navy of rum, bum and the lash. We are spared the lash.’ This was no luxury liner, but a decrepit shell of a ship.

  The making of To the Ends of the Earth was an adventure both onscreen and off. As a ‘nineteenth-century gap year’ for Benedict Cumberbatch, it had been a little too eventful, but by giving the performance of his life, he had probably helped to save the lives of both himself and two of his co-stars. In the aftermath of the car-jacking, he embarked on what he later described as an ‘adrenaline junkie drive’ – a lot of skydiving and hot air ballooning and ‘looking over the precipice’. If he learnt anything from the experience, it was a determination to live life to the full. ‘There is a sense of impatience and a yearning for a life less ordinary,’ he told the Guardian in 2010, ‘which is destructive, as it leads you away from harnessing the true value of things. But it also gives you fantastic knowledge. I know I am going to die on my own, which is something you don’t realise until you are faced with that. A sobering but profound thought to realise early in life.’

  In co-operating with his co-stars, he knew he had to be self-sufficient in life. It was a lesson learnt in his younger days in Harrow (to be both co-operative and independent), but this particular experience had shaken him out of any complacency. ‘When you’ve been forced to look into the idea that you die on your own,’ he told The Times newspaper, ‘you go, “Oh, OK, well if I’ve got my own company at the beginning and the end of this life, I might as well do a few crazy things with it under my own steam”.’

  CHAPTER 7

  CAPTAIN SPEAKING

  As a counterpoint to his rising profile on television, Benedict Cumberbatch was highly sought-after in the world of radio drama and voiceover work. From the autumn of 2003, he became an increasingly familiar voice on BBC Radio 3 and 4, a working relationship that continues to this day. Over the next decade, he would participate in numerous serials, one-off plays (both adaptations and original work), plus book readings, narrations and one of the best-loved comedy series on the air.

  Radio does not pay well, especially when compared to film and television, but nevertheless actors and writers express a strong commitment to working in the medium. Even in 2013, when Cumberbatch’s time was dominated by Hollywood work, he would contribute to plays and series for Radio 3 and 4.

  Those who rarely listen to speech radio might assume that BBC Radio 4 is only the news and the everyday story of country folk, The Archers, which has been running daily for over 60 years. Yet there is a lot more to it than that: documentaries, discussions and features, book and poetry readings, and specialist programmes about books, films, the arts, science, food, finance and many others. In entertainment and comedy, the network has originated and nurtured numerous cult hits, which later transferred to television: The Hitch-Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Have I Got News for You (which also continues to this day on Radio 4 under the name The News Quiz), Knowing Me Knowing You with Alan Partridge, Little Britain and The League of Gentlemen. Plus, quite apart from The Archers, it broadcasts several hours of drama every week: a classic serial on Sundays, drama serials in the mornings as part of Woman’s Hour, and afternoon plays every day from Monday to Saturday.

  For the most part, Cumberbatch’s radio work has consisted of single plays, serials and book readings. He first appeared on Radio 4 in September 2003 when he featured as Edmund in an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park, broadcast as a daily serial over two weeks as part of Woman’s Hour. Within a year, he was a regular voice on the network, as a performer in single dramas and serials, as a narrator of feature material, and as a reader of book adaptations both of fiction and non-fiction. His first lead role in a radio drama came in June 2004, shortly after the broadcast of Hawking on television. He was Captain Rob Collins in The Biggest Secret, a play specially written by Mike Walker to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the Normandy Landings, otherwise known as D-Day and broadcast on 5 June, the eve of the event. Collins is recovering in a hospital after being injured in a parachute drop, and is pleasantly surprised to be recalled for action.

  From here on, Cumberbatch was all over the Radio 4 airwaves: reading books by Christopher Isherwood, Honoré de Balzac and Patrick O’Brian, reworkings of Homer’s The Odyssey, Paul Scott’s The Raj Quartet and Frederic Raphael’s adaptation of his own novel, The Glittering Prizes. He would play Dudley Moore in an original play about the Beyond the Fringe cast of Moore, Peter Cook, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller. He would assume the guise of the prodigious but self-destructive Romantic poet Thomas Chatterton, whose untimely death occurred in 1770 when he was still in his teens. Furthermore, he would give a first-class performance of the American T.S. Eliot in Tom and Viv, about the breakdown of his first marriage to Vivienne Haigh-Wood (Lia Williams).

  Elsewhere in the radio schedules, he read from Franz Kafka’s nightmarish Metamorphosis (about a man who finds he has been transformed into a ‘monstrous vermin’), and from a newly written biography about Giacomo Casanova. But in his large body of work for radio, two projects have risen above everything else. One is a legal drama in which he stars as a character he has loved since childhood. The other is an original situation comedy.

  The legal drama gave him the chance to be involved in the world of Horace Rumpole, the barrister created by John Mortimer (another ex-Harrovian, incidentally). Rumpole, let’s remember, was the character who almost made Cumberbatch abandon acting for a career in law, until he realised he was obsessed by the man. In 2009, he teamed up with Timothy West to portray two ages of Rumpole. West would play a senior version, reflecting on his early days in the profession in the 1950s and 60s, while Cumberbatch would appear in the flashbacks as ‘Young Rumpole’. As of late 2013, seven of Mortimer’s Rumpole cases have been adapted most effectively by Richard Stoneman.

  Despite showing a great deal of potential in his youth as a comedy performer, Cumberbatch has rarely tackled knockabout humour in his professional career, but Cabin Pressure, a Radio 4 sitcom first broadcast in 2008, has been a glorious, hilarious exception to the rule. Written by John Finnemore, previously a writer for Dead Ringers and David Mitchell and Robert Webb’s sketch shows, Cabin Pressure followed the misadventures of the staff of the most cash-strapped charter airline, which had only four staff and one aeroplane.

  Cumberbatch starred as Captain Martin Crieff, a pilot who had taken seven attempts to gain his licence, and who had accepted responsibility on the condition that he came very cheap. The other three regular cast members were Stephanie Cole as the bossy founder of MJN Air, Carolyn Knapp-Shappey, Finnemore as Arthur (her air steward son, so dim that he was surprised the plane could fly without flapping its wings), and Roger Allam as First Officer Douglas Richardson, a world-weary man perpetually seething with sarcasm.

  Overseeing production of the show was David Tyler, a radio producer since 1985 but who, despite many years working on TV with the likes of Victoria Wood, Paul Merton, Steve Coogan and Eddie Izzard, has never abandoned radio comedy, and has produced numerous shows over the years for Jeremy Hardy, Armando Iannucci, Milton Jones and Marcus Brigstocke. Cabin Pressure, like most of Tyler’s output, was made through Pozzitive, an independent production company he had set up with another comedy producer, Geoff Posner.

 
John Finnemore had not written a sitcom series before, but he had conducted a great deal of research into the world of aviation, and realised that an aeroplane was the perfect setting for a comedy. The hierarchy of the staff led to plenty of rivalry. It was set in a confined space, and just flying a plane in the first place is a risky operation. The four primary characters – Carolyn, Martin, Douglas, Arthur – were all British archetypes: draconian, uptight, grumpy and downright idiotic. Other recurring or occasional passengers included the unreasonably demanding Mr Birling (Geoffrey Whitehead), plus a paranoid bassoonist, a snooty film actress (Helen Baxendale) and Carolyn’s sister Ruth (Alison Steadman), whose cameo goes some way to explaining why the siblings had not spoken in 15 years.

  Like so much radio comedy, Cabin Pressure gradually gained popularity over the years, yet even after four series some Cumberbatch fans were unaware of its existence, not just because it was a radio series, but because for some time, it was broadcast at 11.30 in the morning when the majority of people were at work. Fortunately, it reached a wider audience in the summer of 2010 when, just as Sherlock was premiering on television, it was repeated in the early evening comedy slot on Radio 4 at 6.30, bridging the gap between the six o’clock news and The Archers. Six-thirty is a good slot for a programme on Radio 4: people are heading home from work or making a meal and winding down. A good laugh always helps after a tough day.

  Could Cabin Pressure have transferred to television? It would certainly have been nice for such a funny and fast-paced show to become better-known, although part of the joy of the series as a radio-only enterprise was that it was perfectly possible to go anywhere in the story without the need for building lavish sets or visiting far-flung locations. The episode titles reflected the wide geographical canvas for the series: each week’s episode was either given a title of a grand international destination (Abu Dhabi, Boston, Cremona etc.), or a more modest British one (Ipswich, Ottery St Mary, Wokingham).

  As of 2013, Benedict Cumberbatch had made more Cabin Pressure than anything else on radio or television: 24 of its 25 half-hour episodes. By its third series in 2011, he was a big star, and not quite always available for recordings anymore, but he only missed one recording (when Tom Goodman-Hill deputised as Martin). Even for series four, he managed to squeeze it into his busy international filming schedule, and the six episodes had to be taped in London in two marathon Sunday sessions. As the show was recorded in front of a live studio audience, there was a mad rush for tickets by this stage in the run, and wild cheering as well as respectful applause over the signature tune: the riotous overture to the opera Ruslan and Ludmilla, by the Russian composer Mikhail Glinka.

  In November 2013, it was announced by BBC Radio that a 26th and final episode of Cabin Pressure would be recorded and broadcast in early 2014. The one-off special would end the series on a high, with its trademark mix of rich, vivid characters, surreal ideas and inspired jokes. All that, plus some delightful cast interplay. Cabin Pressure is already sorely missed, but at least it came to an end before the comedy grew stale.

  He had shown his comedy credentials in Cabin Pressure, but Cumberbatch had become a star because of Sherlock. The combination of comedy and stardom meant it was only a matter of time before he got the call to do a panel show. In October 2010, he became the latest guest host for Have I Got News for You on BBC1. Although Angus Deayton had done a sterling job as chairman and scriptwriter on the show since its inception in 1990, from 2002, a different guest host chaired each show, from Bruce Forsyth and Charlotte Church, to Alexander Armstrong, Jo Brand and Kirsty Young, and countless others.

  An apprehensive Cumberbatch had been a fan of Have I Got News for You since his teens. ‘My family and I used to make it a routine TV date to relish,’ he said, just before the recording. ‘Like a moth to the flame, I am terrified but cannot resist.’ He was the first host of the 40th series, with regulars Paul Merton and Ian Hislop, and guests Victoria Coren and Jon Richardson. ‘From people I know who have done it before, it is really good fun, however heavy the laundry day may have to be the next morning.’

  Suddenly, then, Cumberbatch was being asked to be himself (rather than play someone else) on television. It was a pleasant surprise. ‘With fame, you do get the most extraordinary perks and experiences, whether it’s chairing programmes or having a voice in the political field, because you happened to have a large audience who listened to you for three nights a year ago. It’s both beneficial and odd, the usual yin-yang thing. But by and large, good.’

  * * *

  By 2006, Cumberbatch’s voice work was spreading beyond radio to audiobooks and advertising voiceovers. He had the sort of voice you might recognise, even if you couldn’t yet quite put a name to it. In time, his voice would help to sell pet food, ice cream, insurance and cars. The live touring version of David Attenborough’s BBC series The Blue Planet would employ him as narrator, in which his commentary over action of dolphins, whales, tropical fish, penguins and polar bears would in turn be accompanied by a remarkable music score from the composer George Fenton. On television documentaries, he would read from William Golding’s diaries for an Arena special, commentate on footage of the southern Pacific Ocean, and narrate more of Stephen Hawking’s findings into the universe.

  One of his most affecting contributions in voiceover work came in 2005 with a Channel 4 film about Rick Rescorla, the Cornish-born security boss at Morgan Stanley merchant bank in New York. In 2001, Rescorla had died in the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers, while helping to save over 2,000 lives. But he had been predicting for over a decade that the Towers could be vulnerable to a terrorist attack and had taken every effort to tighten security at the World Trade Center, as well as advising on improving evacuation routes.

  In 2012, Cumberbatch was involved in two epic events as a reader. At the end of July, he read a short piece of prose in praise of London as ‘the beating heart of the nation’, as part of Danny Boyle’s opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympic Games. Two months later, he participated in a reading project about a gargantuan mammal. Launched as part of the Plymouth International Book Festival, The Moby Dick Big Read was an online reading marathon in which each of the 135 chapters of Herman Melville’s Moby Dick was read by a different person. As well as Cumberbatch, those taking part included Stephen Fry, Sir David Attenborough, Will Self, Neil Tennant, Rick Stein, Cerys Matthews and Simon Callow. The opening section was voiced by the actor Tilda Swinton.

  Cumberbatch’s voice was also called upon for a new iPhone video game in 2011. The Night Jar had the ingenious twist of having no visual content. It placed the player on a spaceship in complete darkness, with the object of the game to reach safety by navigating via sound cues alone. Then in 2012, he became a recording artist of sorts: he performed a six-minute long spoken word piece for a compilation album assembled by the band Friendly Fires. Part of the Late Night Tales series, it was a stew of styles which had influenced the group, from indie heroes like Stereolab and the Cocteau Twins to the more surprising inclusion of Olivia Newton-John. His track was a reading of ‘Flat of Angels’ by Simon Cleary. Cumberbatch was a fan of Friendly Fires, and the feeling was mutual. ‘He really got into subtleties in the text I didn’t realise were there,’ said Cleary. The piece was about the comedown of a house party, delivered in alternating voices. In 2013, he would contribute a second section of the tale to another Late Night Tales mix album, this time by the Norwegian electronic music duo Röyksopp.

  * * *

  But through all of this, Benedict Cumberbatch always stayed loyal to radio, whether drama on BBC Radio 3 and the World Service channel (the latter heard worldwide), or material for Radio 4 and its sister speech station, BBC Radio 7 (later, BBC Radio 4 Extra). In January 2013, just as the fourth series of Cabin Pressure was being broadcast, it was announced that he would feature in a new adaptation (by radio producer Dirk Maggs) of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere, a cult fantasy set in an alternative subterranean version of London. It was a London where fictional characters w
ould live alongside real historical figures and peculiarly apt that Cumberbatch was cast for this. Here is a man who has spent roughly half his professional career portraying real people, and half playing created characters – even though some of those fictional figures are so vivid and enduring, it’s tempting to imagine them as real. This time he met yet another of his idols on the project, Sir Christopher Lee.

  ‘It was extraordinary to talk to that man. I’m very new to all this so I’m still tongue-tied when I meet my heroes.’

  Cumberbatch, then, loves working in the medium of sound only. Even though it generally pays less than film, television and stage, the advantages – as with all voice work – are that it is relatively quick to do, and there are no long and expensive location shoots. With a talented director and an able cast, a radio drama can be recorded in a day in a studio with artful effects and sound design. ‘It’s nice to intensely concentrate on and listen to the word,’ he told the Radio Times. ‘Radio’s just a joy.’

  CHAPTER 8

  FROM SUPPORT TO LEAD

  It was 2006, and Benedict Cumberbatch was approaching his thirtieth birthday. Over the next few years, he would tackle more and more ambitious roles, some minor, some major. He was becoming one of the most versatile actors in British drama, able to switch between the different demands of stage, film and TV with a seeming effortlessness. Over the next three or four years, his diary would be crammed with commitments. His film work would include some of the most acclaimed British features of the period, as well as some diverting work on lower-budget productions. On the London stage, he would excel in some interesting revivals. And on television, he would flourish in both drama and comedy.