Kenneth Branagh received the Gielgud Award - The Golden Quill - from The Shakespeare Guild at Middle Temple Hall, London, January 16, 2000.
Dame Judi Dench, recipient of the Award in 1999, presented Branagh his Golden Quill. In her remarks, she reflected on her relationship with him and his invitation to direct 'Much Ado' for his newly formed [1987] Renaissance Theatre Company:
Ladies and gentlemen, I'm not going to go on for a very long time; I'm going to say something quite short. But I think you ought to know that from the moment I met Ken Branagh I was in deep trouble.
It's gone on for a very long time now; it was about 15 years ago, actually. We were cast in 'Ghosts' and I was playing his mother; rather unsuitable, actually, it was ... but still; and Elijah Moshinsky, in the studio, I'm afraid, asked us both to leave due to bad behavior. I have to say that it wasn't entirely due to Ken; it was mostly due to Michael Gambon, but that's another story.
Then a bit later he rang me up one day, very excited, and he said "I want to talk to you, can I come and meet you for lunch?" And I thought, he's going to ask me to play a really wonderful part, this is going to be really it! This is going to be it!! So we met and, as Derek [Jacobi] has said before, gradually, he got round to saying, "Will you direct 'Much Ado About Nothing'? Chooses the play for you! So I was completely stunned to be asked to direct, something I had never done in my life before. So anyway, after a while of thinking, days, weeks, or whatever, I said, "Yes, I would do it." And I had a very, very nice time doing it ... a bit bossy ... but I was very ... I had a very nice time doing it, indeed.
I do remember that between the verses of the song when Ken was hiding in the little ... four little trees I gave him to hide in the middle of, there would be one verse of the song, and he'd think it was over. And so, when they started the second one, you could hear him say, "Oh, God," or "Oh, Jesus," or "Oh, Christ." And I gave him ... I said I didn't want to hear any of that again ... I don't want to hear any of that again!! But, of course, it was there ... it was there. He wanted to do it, so he did it.
[When] they went on tour to Briton, I went down to see it and took a lot of notes. And when I went round afterwards, he'd left the theater in his costume because he didn't want any notes from me ...
However, I have to say that he's among a handful of people that if he were to say "Will you come and play this part?" and I didn't even know what the play was, I would, without reading it, say "YES, I'll come!"
Ken, everybody's said all the things we feel about you tonight. I can't think of a better or a more deserving person to get the Golden Quill and especially in Sir John ... beloved Sir John's name. And it is for, as you've heard, your sense of humor and your constancy, the fact that you never read the papers and for your stoicism, and for the fact that you have never forgotten anybody's name on anything you've ever done, any set or anything, down to the person who comes and ... I don't know, what? ... does something just to the set. You know everybody's name and everybody's introduced to everybody. I think you are a remarkable person. And I feel very, very proud that it's my turn to pass the Golden Quill to you.
And I just have to add one thing: I got this award in New York last summer. It is immensely heavy; in fact, one person can't hold it. I had to ship mine back across the Atlantic at enormous expense ... whereas you have just got to put it in the boot of your car and take it a couple of miles down the road. So ... will you please come up here and I'll give it to you.
Thanks to Mike Kennedy for sending me this article.