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Poetry bagged actor part

24/11/2006

A YOUNG actor from Bramhall landed a starring role on the big screen after demonstrating to Alan Bennett exactly how well versed he is.

Twenty-two-year-old Sacha Dhawan wowed the Yorkshire writer with his poetry at an audition The History Boys.

But the talented student (pictured) originally thought he had ruined his chances as he read for a part set in a fictional northern school in the eighties.

"I didn't think I'd done that good an audition and I'd been performing my poetry for a while, so I asked if I could read this poem, thinking as I did it that this could be really silly," he said.

"But they let me go ahead and then didn't really say anything so I thought 'Oh God, I've made it worse'! In fact, Alan told me later how impressed he was and asked if he could read more of my work.

"It was a couple of days later that Alan called and told me to come around and he'd give me some advice.

"So I found myself having tea and eating buttered scones with Alan Bennett in his study, talking about my poetry."

Now Sacha - and Salford chum Andrew Knott - are among the stars of the big screen version.

Bennett - writer of classics such as Talking Heads and The Madness Of King George - was aware the pair were just slightly nervous when he first met them.

"I remember when Sacha, who plays Ahktar, and Andrew, who plays Lockwood, came down to audition on the train from Manchester. They were really wired and on edge.

"You realised it meant an enormous amount to them. They both read well but then Sacha, at the end of the audition, asked if he could read a poem - he'd written this poem about the play.

"And it was probably that that got him the part.