Cambridge Evening News, 28 June 2007
** Thanks, Anna

With his trademark booming voice that every man just loves to imitate, actor Brian Blessed comes to Cambridge this weekend to discuss his appearance in Kenneth Branagh's latest Shakespeare adaptation, 'As You Like It'.

Memorable in Branagh's 90s version of 'Much Ado About Nothing', Blessed cunningly side-stepped the follow- up flop, 'Love's Labour's Lost' in 2000, but returns alongside the likes of Richard Briers, David Oyelowo and Kevin Kline in the Bard's classic comedy about love, loyalty and enthusiastic cross-dressing.

"Ken and I have a father/son relationship," Blessed tells the News. "I'm the son and he's the father! He built a house about five minutes away from me and he's always popping in for tea. We go for long walks and I love to shock him by telling him what I'm up to. If he has doubts about some new venture he's doing I tell him, 'Get on with it, I'm going to the South Pole at my age, what are you worried about?"

Sound advice indeed, especially from a man who is heading back to Everest next spring for his third attempt at the summit.

"I remember standing on the Western slope of Everest at 22,000 feet during the worst monsoon conditions ever," he says. "There were 200 mile-per-hour avalanches 500 feet high coming towards us on all sides. I just shouted, 'Will you stop it, we're paying homage to you!"

Blessed is [sic] no doubt film is the ultimate medium for presenting the Bard's work in the 21st Century.

"If Shakespeare was alive today he'd be doing what Spielberg is doing," he says. "He'd be out there with cameras."

Brian Blessed will be at the Cambridge Film Festival for the screening of 'As You Like It' at the Arts Picturehouse on Saturday at 6.15pm. The film will be shown again on Sunday, July 8 at 8.45pm.