Christian McKay steals the show as Orson Welles

Richard Linklater's new film Me and Orson Welles stars High School Musical heart-throb Zac Efron in the 'Me' role. But while Efron has received good reviews for his turn as an insecure 17-year-old who finds himself spending a week with the great director, it is British newcomer Christian McKay whose uncanny turn as Welles has created the biggest buzz.

It is 1937 and Orson Welles is already a darling of the New York theatre scene at just 22. Welles is in the final week of rehearsals for what would become his legendary version of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar - a radical 90-minute restaging set in contemporary fascist Italy - at the Mercury Theater. Efron's character, Richard Samuels, stumbles in on the rehearsals and lands himself a last-minute part.

Although 36, McKay both looks and sounds like Welles as a dynamic and ambitious young man, just prior

to his radio adaptation of HG Wells's War of the Worlds and his seminal first feature film, Citizen Kane. The performance by McKay, a RADA-trained stage actor and former concert pianist, has elicited rave reviews from critics and there's a lot of talk of awards.

The Wall Street Journal's film critic Joe Morgenstern called McKay "an excellent English actor who bears, or somehow simulates, a facial resemblance to the great man, and nails Welles's expression of pouty, aggrieved amusement" while Variety's Todd McCarthy hailed McKay's performance as the "indisputable highlight" of the film.

Time's Mary Pols described McKay as "exceptional", however she did call the 14-year age difference between McKay and Welles in 1937 the one "insurmountable" problem. "Passing