A Woman’s Wit

Upon a friend’s recommendation (thank you, Doreen!), I read Judi Dench’s Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent. Over four years, Dench’s buddy and fellow Shakespearean thespian, Brendan O’Hea, interviewed her about all the Shakespearean roles she has played, numbering close to thirty in all. These performances include many media. She’s appeared at Stratford-upon-Avon, the Old Vic, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and dozens of theaters around the world. On TV, she portrayed Lady Macbeth and Cecily, mother of Richard III, in the BBC series The Hollow Crown. Her Shakespearean film credits include Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Mistress Quickly in Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V, and she appeared in the Shakespeare-adjacent film Shakespeare in Love.

How charming is Judi Dench? Let me count the ways. Now 90 years old, she’s funny as heck and irreverent. She sometimes breaks up laughing on stage and likes to pull pranks on her cast members. (You can see her prank her Richard III costar Benedict Cumberbatch in this ad.) Her language is salty. Her memory is prodigious. In some interviews, she recites speeches that she learned decades ago, sometimes even speeches of other characters.

Extremely hardworking, she repeatedly cites the importance of “doing your homework,” that is, preparing for a role before the first rehearsal. The book is filled with Dench’s delightful drawings from her scripts, where she doodled impressions and costumes. She can be acerbic about actors and directors who haven’t done their homework, but she’s never gossipy. She speaks fondly and admiringly of, for example, Kenneth Branagh, Vanessa Redgrave, and Daniel Day-Lewis, and directors Trevor Nunn and Peter Hall. She refers frequently and fondly to her fellow actor and husband Michael Williams, who died in 2001.

She provides down-to-earth, relatable analyses of Shakespeare’s characters. About Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing, she says,

She has no interest in marriage. She’s down on her knees every night praying it’ll never happen. Who needs a man? . . . (Beatrice advises her young cousin Hero) to think for herself, to make her own decisions, and not to let anybody push her around. . . It shows Beatrice to be an unconventional heroine–non-conformist, modern, very forward-thinking.

Dench made me want to read plays I’m not familiar with, such as Measure for Measure (she played Isabella), The Merry Wives of Windsor (Mistress Quickly), and The Winter’s Tale (Hermione). She hates The Merchant of Venice, calling it “an ugly play” for its obsession with money and its anti-Semitism.

For a memorable taste of Judi Dench, watch this excerpt from the Graham Norton show, where she was promoting this book and recited, spell-bindingly, Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29.

Do you have a favorite Judi Dench film or appearance? Favorite (or least favorite) Shakespeare? Comment below.