BENET BRANDRETH,

only son of Gyles, has stabbed himself — not in a bid to escape his father’s shadow, but while playing Hamlet at the Park Theatre in North London. All the other parts in this family drama are played by Brandreth senior or by Benet’s American wife, Kosha Engler. ‘The dagger I use has a blunt end so I didn’t do too much damage,’ says Benet, a barrister, who skewered his hand. The family has a talent for self-destruction. Gyles says his parents, Benet’s grandparents, were ‘Anglo-Welsh — they burned down their own cottage’.