Physicist, prime minister, pyromaniac: you name it, this young star can play it
To say Benedict Cumberbatch is versatile would be an understatement. The 30-year-old, who made his breakthrough as the wheelchair-bound scientist Stephen Hawking in the 2004 BBC drama Hawking, has in the past 12 months starred as a lascivious villain making untoward advances on a minor in Atonement, the rather more gentlemanly Pitt the Younger in Amazing Grace, and an upper-class twit of a University Challenge team captain in Starter for Ten. And now he's ready to set the world on fire. Well, he is certainly prepared to set something ablaze, as one half of the eponymous fire- starting duo in Max Frisch's The Arsonists.
Following a string of parts in TV shows such as Spooks and Nathan Barley, the son of the actors Timothy Carlton and Wanda Ventham has recently garnered plaudits playing the lead in Eugne Ionesco's Rhinoceros at the Royal Court, and will shortly begin a stint with largely the same cast in The Arsonists. The play is a parable about appeasement - a "respected member of a community" entertains two house guests, who taunt him with the threat of burning down his house. "It's wonderful being in an ensemble," says Cumberbatch. "There's a fluid approach to work. You play to each other's strengths. I think [director] Dominic [Cooke] hopes the plays will feed off each other."
Next up is an appearance alongside Scarlett Johansson and Eric Bana in The Other Boleyn Girl. "I'm slightly wary of whether it's made the final cut, though," he says. "They will probably want more of Eric and Scarlett. " Despite his protestations, all the evidence points to Cumberbatch's future ubiquity being assured - as hero, villain, and anything else asked of him.
by Lucy Kinnear
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