Living the Dream at the Rose
By Will Gore »
Actor Oliver Chris was understandably cock-a-hoop when he got a call from Sir Peter Hall telling him he had made it into his cast for the Rose Theatre’s new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
And the news got even better – not only had he bagged the part of Bottom, but he would also be starring alongside Judi Dench.
Although Chris admits that, in the build-up to rehearsals, he was nervous at the prospect of acting alongside British theatre royalty, he says Dench, who is playing Titania, quickly integrated with the rest of the company.
“She is brilliant and, even more surprisingly, and slightly irritatingly, lives up to that reputation she has of being a delightful, kind and fabulous woman to work with,” he adds.
“She really is just one of the team – we have been to the pub with her and she even came to Nandos with a load of us. I never thought I’d see Dame Judi Dench tucking into some barbecue hot wings but there you go!”
Chris, who appeared in The Portrait of a Lady at the Rose in 2008, says that after his audition he was not confident that the role was his.
He explains: “When I left I thought my chances were all over but, a few days later, I got a call saying I had got the part and my arm nearly fell off in delight. I happened to fit in with Peter’s vision for this particular production.
“Often, Bottom is a middle-aged pompous ass but he wanted to experiment with a young and naïve Bottom and make an odd couple out of him and Titania.
“We have built this mismatched, ridiculous relationship between the pair and to be doing that with Judi, who is one of Britain’s finest actresses, is just unbelievable.”
Ever since Dench’s casting was announced, the excitement has been building at the Rose and around Kingston, with tickets selling fast. After last year’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, Dream is the Rose’s second home-grown Shakespeare production and Chris says the theatre is the perfect home for productions that stay faithful to the Bard’s texts.
He adds: “The Rose is a great twist on Shakespearean theatre – getting on the stage will be really exciting.”
www.elmbridgeguardian.co.uk/leisure/4891Judi Dench's number, Folies Bergere, from the movie Nine!
Enjoy! She's FABULOUS
Thanks to
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
calicokitty1212 for finding this photo of Judi and "friend" at the New York Premiere of Nine. It's a lovely photo; too bad whoever wrote the caption doesn't know it's her daughter.
The picture is in Cinema Italiano black and white but the
actual video is in glorious Hollywood color. Click on the
link below to read the brief article at TV New Zealand.
http://tvnz.co.nz/close-up/just-judi-s-d
According to this article www.theage.com.au/articles/2010/01/23/12
With Paul Daneman as Toby Belch
and John Neville as Andrew Aguecheek
And a pair of posters from the 1970s
1973, The Wolf by Ferenc Molnar
and a 1978 production of the Way of the World by William Congreve
This was SFH's very unsatisfactory answer
SFH is unable to embed the videos, but you can click this link to watch them http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/cran
It's aired in the UK and the show comes to the US next week. If you haven't seen it or can't wait, the first of 18 segments is here
Life's such a Dream for Judi...until the work dries up!
Dame Judi Dench: About to reprise the role she played in A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Sixties
Judi Dench is having a recurring dream - and it's back for a fourth time.
She is about to begin rehearsing A Midsummer Night's Dream with director Peter Hall, and cannot wait to return to the role she played almost 48 years ago.
'I last did it with Peter directing in 1962 for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and when he said he wanted to do it again, I said: "OK, when and where?"' Judi told me.
Back in the Sixties she played Titania and she will play that same character, the 'queen of the faeries', in the production Hall will direct for his Rose Theatre in Kingston, Surrey, which runs from February 9 through March 20.
In other Midsummer productions in 1957 and 1960, she played the first fairy and Hermia, both at the Old Vic.
'I should think she'll be a different Titania from the one I played in 1962,' the award-winning actress said drily.
The company's full of people she can jest with, such as James Laurenson, Rachael Stirling, Julian Wadham and Tam Williams.
Judi likes returning to the stage. Last summer she appeared with Rosamund Pike in Madame de Sade, directed by Michael Grandage for the Donmar's West End season.
'That play was difficult to do, but I wouldn't swap it for anything,' she told me as she burst into laughter.
'Well, I fell over on the second night and broke my toe, but I went back as soon as I was allowed.'
The cast couldn't put their clothes on in the dressing room because the dresses were too large.
'We all had to go downstairs to put these great big gowns on and, of course, there was great spirit and the other girls were so funny.'
She's keeping her fingers crossed that Grandage will invite her back to the Donmar.
Even though she's been in the theatre for more than half a century, she remains an ardent student of stage history.
She told me she wishes more people contemplating a life in theatre should 'actually find out what had been done before, whether it's in movies or theatre'.
She believes that our cultural heritage is 'so strong and so brilliant' that she's hurt when other actors 'don't know who Peggy or people like her are', referring to theatre legend Peggy Ashcroft.
Looking back, however briefly, can often be inspirational.
'Just take a look at the film Brief Encounter, for instance. It might be wonderful discipline to try to play one of the scenes at the speed that they played it in.
'I'm not saying that is the right way and I'm not saying that is the way we should do it now; it's just to know about it, just to know what people have done.
'Sometimes you can look back at something and think: "How did they get away with that? Why did they do it that way?"
The theatrical heritage is an organic part of what we're lucky to be part of.'
In the same way, the Sally Bowles she played in Cabaret on stage for Hal Prince in 1968 was a sort of signpost of her musical number in her latest movie, Nine.
As spymaster 'M', she shoots the next Bond film in 2011, but for now Judi has no other firm plans aside from A Midsummer Night's Dream.
'I'm getting a bit frightened about it,' she admits of her work diary. 'I get very alarmed, so I hope something will come up that I can do.'
I should think Harvey Weinstein has just Fed-Exed her a stack of scripts.
Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-12
Aled Jones's Highlight Show
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00
A Wizard of EarthSea, Episode 1
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00
A Wizard of EarthSea, Episode 2
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00
Our thanks to calicokitty1212 for reminding us of the Aled Jones highlight show
And here's the related article from the Times "Getting to Nine by the Italian Route" www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/movies/13nine.h
calicokitty1212 sent a note that Judi's interview was taped on November 19. In any case, it was a very good interview and Judi seemed fairly relaxed. What I think was especially nice is that he wasn't all cowed by her and treated her as if he knew her. Bonnie at ATGB Central (www.atgbcentral.com) posted this clip on her site. Interestingly, she was there to promote Nine but other than introducing her with a clip ("Directing is a very over rated job, we all know it.") he never mentioned the movie again. The audience gave her a very warm and loud standing ovation when she entered. 
As was so cannily noted by our dear correspondent, FilmFemmeNoir, Judi has a new handbag. In case any of you missed it, if you look carefully at the photo, you should see it.
While we at SFH are exercising our sense of humor, so too does Judi:
Judi Dench Wanted to Dance in ‘Nine’
December 19, 2009
Richard Ouzounian
Dame Judi Dench at the New York premiere this week of Nine, in which she plays Lilli.
STEPHENLOVEKIN/GETTYIMAGESFORTHEWEINSTEI
NEW YORK–Art keeps imitating life for Dame Judi Dench, but she wouldn't have it any other way.
The 75-year-old Oscar-winning British star of stage, film and television is bringing her unique combination of earthy honesty and sophisticated flair to the role of Lilli in Nine. She plays a costume designer who's also the best friend of film director Guido Contini (Daniel Day-Lewis), and it's a role that resonates for her on several unexpected levels.
"I had always wanted to be a costume designer when I was young, but I had never told many people and they certainly never knew it when they cast me in the role," says Dench, sitting in a cream-and-gold suite in the slightly faded elegance of the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.
But that connection was insignificant compared with the shocking memory that the film revived. Back in 1989, Dench was playing Gertrude opposite Day-Lewis's Hamlet at the National Theatre in London. One night during the run, Day-Lewis suffered a complete nervous collapse and withdrew from the show. There was a rumour at the time, later confirmed by the actor, that he had seen the ghost of his own father, poet C. Day Lewis, during the scene where Hamlet encounters his father's spirit.
In Nine, Contini flees from the film he is supposed to be starting, haunted by the ghosts of his life, especially that of his mother.
Dench readily admits that the similarity between the two situations occurred to her, but adds: "Daniel and I never discussed it at all. We know what happened at that time. I knew him then and I've known him all the years since. It's a relationship that leads to a shorthand you can bring to your work together, but you don't have to speak about it."
She's positive that "Daniel must have drawn on his memories" to fuel his performance. That's a necessary thing, she says. "You have to have experienced, observed or read about any emotion you put onto the stage or screen."
Dench is one of the most respected members of her profession, known among the theatrically savvy for her great classical performances, but also beloved by the film-going public for roles like her Oscar-winning turn as Queen Elizabeth or her continuing role as M in the last six James Bond films.
When confronted with the variety of characters for which she's known, she laughs. "I think it's wonderful that everybody has a different Judi Dench in their mind," she says.
It's all grist for the mill. "It's the same process, exactly the same, whether you're playing a queen or a beggar sitting on the street with a couple of lines. That same process, that life inside. You recognize that character and figure out what makes them tick."
But having set that clockwork mechanism successfully in motion, the one thing Dench has no interest in doing is recycling it elsewhere.
"You do a wonderful part and succeed in it and everyone likes it so much that they send you scripts that are just the same, but that's the last thing you want to do, the very last thing you want to do.
"I'm always ringing up my agent saying, `Isn't there a part for someone who's working in a circus and has to learn how to walk a tightrope? Isn't there somebody who dresses up as a bear?' I long for the challenge of something very new. I just long for it!"
That kind of energy has driven Dench ever since she was born in Yorkshire on Dec. 9, 1934. She came into the theatre at an early age, working on the remounting of the York Mystery Plays and making a heralded appearance as the Virgin Mary.
This lead to her first professional engagement with the Old Vic, where she played Ophelia in 1957 opposite the Hamlet of John Neville, former artistic director of the Stratford Festival.
Dench's famous speaking voice, which has the raspy warmth of freshly grated nutmeg, takes on a softer edge when speaking of Neville. "Dearest John, what a great actor, a great man and a great friend. I learned everything you need to know about the craft of acting from him: the energy required, the quality of danger you have to bring to everything you do, the importance of vocal and emotional clarity...he understood it all.
"Later on, when he took over the Nottingham Playhouse, he proved to be a wonderful leader of a company as well."
I tell Dench a story about working with Neville on a production, when one actress suddenly exploded, saying, "John, I'm sorry! I'm not good enough, but you have to forgive us all for committing the unforgivable sin of not being Judi Dench."
Her eyes fill with tears. "I loved him very much."
Despite her great stoic presence on stage and screen, Dench admits that she still breaks down in private over lost friends and the untimely passing of her husband of 30 years, Michael Williams, in 2001. "In the quiet moments at home, I look through my remembrances of the past and sometimes I come across a single photograph and it makes my insides turn over."
She pulls out a tissue, blows her nose and shakes her head to dispel the sorrows. "But there's so much good happening now that I can't dwell on the sad stuff. My daughter (actor Finty Williams) just opened to tremendous notices in a revival of Ayckbourn's Bedroom Farce, and you won't believe what I'm going to do next!
"In January, I start rehearsing for Peter Hall as Titania in A Midsummer Night's Dream. It's a role I first played for him in 1962. I could go on stage and do it again tonight. I've never forgotten the part."
This particular production, it must be mentioned, is set around the concept of the aging Queen Elizabeth I taking part in the show, so Dench's casting makes sense. And even though she wishes that "there was more of Shakespeare I could do, but I've (already) played Mistress Quickly and all those old queens," she's not about to venture into transgender casting as Lear or Prospero.
"Good God, no!" she roars. "Me as Lear? I think it would be hysterical. I do not want to go the Sarah Bernhardt route just so everyone can have a good giggle at my expense."
And you know that whatever she chooses, wherever she goes, whoever she plays, it's Judi Dench who will always have the last laugh.
www.thestar.com/entertainment/article/74
A little bit of video over at BBC News with a bit of an interview and some clips of the coming shows.
And here's some behind the scenes footage shooting some of the musical numbers; some very brief footage of Judi starts at 1:43
17 December on BBC Two - The Culture Show featuring an interview with Daniel Day-Lewis
25 December on BBC Radio 7 - A Wizard of EarthSea, Episode 1, starring Judi Dench
27 December on BBC Radio 2 - Aled Jones with Good Morning Sunday, featuring highlights from the year including Judi Dench on Easter Sunday morning
28 December on BBC Radio 2 - A Wizard of EarthSea, Episode 2
SFH loves the scarf she's wearing and believes it's the same one she worn for the Parade magazine photo shoot a few years back, when she was nominated for Mrs Henderson Presents.
Syndicate
Here are a couple of pictures that we think show Judi being a lady and Judi being a dame
We hope that's cleared it up for you.
Feel free to drop us a note and tell us how you define "dame".