A look at the career of actor and director Kenneth Branagh, who has been knighted this week in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

Few will be surprised by the news that Kenneth Charles Branagh has been made a Sir at the age of 51.

Indeed, from the moment the Belfast native first made his mark in the early 1980s, he has always seemed to be an actor knight in waiting.

Comparisons to Laurence Olivier - who was knighted himself at the age of 40 - have pursued Branagh throughout his career, and are likely to do so again in the light of this latest elevation.

Yet Branagh can be said to have invited those comparisons, not least by choosing to portray the great man on screen in 2011's My Week with Marilyn.

The "new Olivier" tag first attached itself in 1989 when Branagh released his film of Henry V - a Shakespeare history play that "Larry" had famously filmed in 1944.

By the time of its release, however, its 28-year-old director and star was already established as a rising talent on television and the stage.

On his knighthood, Branagh said: "I feel humble, elated and incredibly lucky.

"When I was a kid I dreamed of pulling on a shirt for the Northern Ireland football team. I could only imagine how proud you might feel. Today it feels like they just gave me the shirt and my heart's fit to burst."

Born in Belfast in December 1960, Branagh spent his early years in Northern Ireland before moving to Reading with his family when he was nine.

Having adopted an English accent to avoid being bullied, he first showed a talent for acting in school productions of Toad of Toad Hall and Oh, What a Lovely War.