It’s twilight on a bleak February evening and I’m sprinting down Castle Hill dodging students whilst frantically keying nonsensical messages into my mobile phone, I’m getting the most exercise I’ve had in Lent term so far. Why the amateur athletics? Rather than a week five bout of supervision amnesia, I’m running late for a much more important appointment. Lord Grantham of Downton Abbey fame has come to Cambridge.
Those of you not acquainted with the Lord might know him by his other name, Hugh Bonneville. You might also know him under the guise of a rather unprepossessing tramp called Mr. Stink, or as Ian Fletcher, Head of Deliverance for the 2012 Olympic Games. Indeed, Bonneville is that rare breed of actor who can put on many faces without you necessarily remembering his original identity. It is as a Lord, though, that Bonneville has really become a national treasure.
Hugh has come to speak at the Cambridge Union, and as I pant my way towards the redbrick building, I already know what my first question will be. As a former Cantabrigian at Corpus Christi college, I ask him about his defining memory of his time as an undergraduate. Rehearsals rooms and auditions, that’s what he remembers: “I’m afraid the School of Divinity didn’t see as much of me as it should have done.” Wearing jeans and a hoody, Bonneville is more the leisurely student than a carefully coifed member of the aristocracy: there is no hint of Grantham here. I feel instantly at ease with Hugh; he emanates the calm confidence of an experienced interviewee.
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