Benedict Cumberbatch announces engagement to Sophie Hunter

An engagement announcement was posted in the Times, between Sherlock star Cumberbatch and Hunter, an actor and successful stage director

Benedict Cumberbatch and Sophie Hunter. Photograph: Getty Images/REX

Benedict Cumberbatch has got engaged to his girlfriend Sophie Hunter. A modest and traditional announcement posted in the Times today read:

The engagement is announced between Benedict, son of Wanda and Timothy Cumberbatch of London, and Sophie, daughter of Katharine Hunter of Edinburgh and Charles Hunter of London.

It’s a typically low-key gesture by a couple who have kept their relationship out of the limelight. Cumberbatch, 38 and Hunter, 36, were only confirmed as a couple earlier this year, after they were pictured together at the French Open.

As well as a number of small film roles – including one alongside Cumberbatch in 2009 film Burlesque Fairytales – Hunter has frequently directed for the stage.
She won the Samuel Beckett award for writing and directing her play The Terrific Electric in 2007, and has since staged productions of Britten’s opera The Rape of Lucretia, Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and Ibsen’s Ghosts.

Cumberbatch meanwhile shot to fame with his lead role in Sherlock, and has since appeared in a series of high profile films, the latest being Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game due for release on 14 November