Inevitably, inviting leading actors to direct has been compared to letting the lunatics take over the asylum. The point, Branagh says, is not to have a company designed for actor-directors, but simply to redress a balance in which directors have become all-important.

"It's just to say why shouldn't Judi Dench direct 'Much Ado' and it needn't mean that she wants to be a director for the rest of her life, but she may have something worthwhile and particular to say about the play," Branagh said. "I wanted to make less unusual the prospect of other people doing the same thing."

Thanks to Mike Kennedy for sending this excerpt from the Los Angeles Times, October 16, 1989.