Torn Dresses, Frank Sinatra, Ghosts in the Loo: Judi Dench on a Lifetime of Playing Shakespeare

When I was at the old Vic, I had a number of walk-ons and understudy roles—one of which was in Henry VIII with Sir John Gielgud, Harry Andrews and Dame Edith Evans. That was the production when they famously all dried on the first night. All of them—John, Harry and Edith—in that long scene between Wolsey, Henry VIII and Katherine of Aragon. It must be written up somewhere because it was a horrific moment. – Judi Dench * Brendan O’Hea : What happened? Judi Dench : Nothing happened! That was the problem. [ Laughs. ] There was just a great long pause where nobody spoke. BOH : Were you onstage when it occurred? JD : No, I was only in one scene with Dame Edith, later on in the play. I would sit on the ground sewing a tapestry with all the other ladies-in waiting, dressed in some little Elizabethan number. One night when we were performing in Paris, the backstage crew set Dame Edith’s chair in the wrong place, and during the blackout she missed it and fell over. When the lights came up, she looked like a beetle: lying on her back, legs and arms flailing. [ Laughs. ] She kept calling out, “ Fermez les lumières ,” begging them to turn off the lights. I shouldn’t laugh. None of us helped her—we just went on sewing. Maybe that’s why, many years later, nobody helped me when I fell over as Volumnia—divine retribution. Those buggers in Chichester also carried on sewing. None of us helped her—we just went on sewing. Maybe that’s why, many years later, nobody helped me when I fell over as Volumnia—divine retribution. In another play— Henry VI, Part Two— I was a spirit in a leotard that came out of the fire and then went home; I didn’t even take the curtain call. I was conjured up by Maggie Courtenay and had to say “Adsum, asmath.” I never even knew what the play was about. The production coincided with the Asian Flu pandemic—it was rife, and all the boys—God knows why it just […]

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