Dame Judi Dench has delighted thousands of film, television and theatre lovers by playing two queens of England, countless Shakespearean roles and James Bond’s strict MI5 boss ‘M’ – but there’s one person who perhaps wasn’t her biggest fan.
The 91-year-old has shared an anecdote from her childhood on a new podcast… and let’s just say, ‘nightmare kids next door’ is the phrase that comes to mind.
Appearing on the BBC’s This Natural Life podcast, Dench confesses to playing a prank on a neighbour, starting the tale with the ominous: “This is a terrible story.”
Referring to her older brothers, she continues: “The boys used to play cricket in the garden, and they used to be always batting the balls over into the other gardens, and there was a lady called Miss Lazenby, and she never ever would throw the ball back, or give us the balls back.”
So far, so good, right? Well…
She continued: ‘Once the boys found a dead rat in the barn, and they parcelled it up, and they said to me, ‘Judi, will you just go round and put this through Miss Lazenby’s door?’.”
The children then wrote a note saying ‘please give us our balls back’ and attached it to the rat. “So I did go and squeeze it through Miss Lazenby’s door,” Dench confessed. Unsurprisingly, she added they “probably” didn’t get the cricket balls back.
Dench, who was made a dame for services to acting in 1987, has taken a step back from acting in recent years due to health issues.
In 2012, the Mrs Brown star revealed she had been diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration, a degenerative eye condition described as the biggest cause of sight loss in the UK.
While the condition doesn’t cause total blindness, it can make everyday activities quite difficult.
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In an interview to mark her 91st birthday in December last year, Dench also revealed she has had short-term memory issues – but said she can still recall lines she learnt decades ago.
“I can’t remember what I am doing tomorrow, I swear to you,” Dench told Radio Times, before saying she felt lucky to still be able to remember great reams of Shakespeare.
Over the course of Dench’s seven-decade career on stage and screen, she has become one of the country’s most decorated stars, garnering one Oscar, one Tony, two Golden Globes, four TV Baftas, six film Baftas and seven Olivier awards.
Last month, she was left “truly overwhelmed” when The Shaftesbury Theatre announced it was changing its name to honour her.
The theatre said the tribute “will ensure Dame Judi’s legacy continues to inspire future generations of performers and audiences alike”, with Chief Executive Eleanor Lang stating: “We don’t celebrate brilliant women enough in our West End theatre names, so we are delighted that her name will be forever in lights above our doorway.”
Dench, a founding member of the Theatre of Comedy collective who had shares in the Shaftesbury Theatre, said: “My relationship to the Theatre of Comedy and to the Taffner family goes back many years and to have this beautiful theatre renamed after me is truly overwhelming.
“Live theatre continues to be so important as a way of telling stories and entertaining audiences, something I have aimed to do all my working life.”
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