Actor-director Kenneth Branagh will receive an honorary doctorate from the University of Birmingham for his Shakespeare adaptations.
Branagh will be awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters during celebrations of the 50th anniversary of the university's Shakespeare Institute. The ceremony is set for Sunday in Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's birthplace and home of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
The university said the 40-year-old, who has starred in and directed film versions of "Henry V," "Much Ado About Nothing," "Hamlet" and "Love's Labor's Lost," had helped bring Shakespeare's work to a new audience.
"He's very much in the tradition of Olivier, and his direction is terribly important," a university spokeswoman said. "Shakespeare was always intended to be performed in the vulgar marketplace. Nowadays, that would be film."