Judi Dench: Still Going Strong at 80
Bidding an emphatic happy birthday to Dame Judi Dench is not a simple case of applauding a fixture of British entertainment or a career of over forty years in film and television. It’s not simply about applauding a career which boasts such classics as Philomena (2013), Notes on a Scandal (2006) and the various James Bond films. A career for which Dench has received an Academy Award, numerous BAFTA’s (including its lifetime achievement), Golden Globes and an Order of the British Empire by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. No, celebrating the birthday, and by extension the career, of Dame Judi Dench is celebrating a dying breed of British thespian.
You may have noticed that since about, oh 2007, there has been an ongoing debate in Western society about wealth inequality and how this closes off the routes of social mobility. In Britain, this debate has bled over to the entertainment industry, with cuts to arts funding and bursaries and theatre closures cutting off working class actors. Today the actors who represent Britain internationally; Tom Hiddleston, Damien Lewis, Dominic West and Tumblr obsession Benedict Cumberbatch are all the products of the public school system. This is not to say that they are not great actors (for the record they are fantastic actors) but they benefited from certain advantages that someone with Dench’s background does not have. Attending Eton provides aspiring actors with access to a four-hundred seat theatre to perform in any of its twenty annual productions, not to mention trips to the Edinburgh Festival and better access to professional performances and industry insiders.
However, Dench is a versatile actor and has played both sides of the social spectrum from the arrogant aristocrat Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (2002) to the austere Mrs Fairfax in Jane Eyre (2011). In fact some of the roles for which she is best known are for playing the distinctly working class; the eccentric landlady Armande in Chocolat (2000), the bitter spinster Barbara in Notes on a Scandal and the penniless Evelyn Greenslade in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011).
It has to be said though that all of these pale in comparison to Dame Judi’s most iconic role, that of M. Dench portrays the no-nonsense head of MI6 from 1995 to 2012, spanning seven films and several video games. Dench’s M was a coldly calculating figure, the only one whom Bond couldn’t make a fool of. Many saw her as a more maternal figure to Bond, privately admitting his skills, tolerating his vices and mourning the numerous times he was presumed dead. This came to a head in her final Bond film Skyfall (2012) which sees a betrayed MI6 agent enact revenge for M’s past. Arguably the film is much more about her than it is about Bond, and Dench’s performance adds solemnity to the quiet tragedy.
Dench has been outspoken about the state of British acting. According to Gavin Henderson, principal of the Central School of Speech and Drama she has been “…enormously supportive. She was for a period president of the school. She was deemed to be generous.” And other sources have spoken of Dench’s discreet support. But with arts and humanities continuing to be downgraded in education it is possible that actors of her more humble origins will be an increasing minority. A tragedy when you consider the accomplishments she has made over almost half a century on screen. Even now Dench’s work is met with acclaim having acquired her seventh Academy Award nomination for last year’s Philomena. Proof that even at eighty the best can be yet to come.
by Liam Macloed
The stories of actors like Cumberbatch and Lewis now dominate the British acting community, whereas actors with Dench’s history are becoming an increasing rarity. This is not to say that Dench is the epitome of working class, her father was a doctor who served as the resident physician for the Theatre Royal in York, the same theatre where her mother worked in the wardrobe department. So not exactly living on the breadline but easily far humbler origins than her artistic descendants. With this connection to the theatre Dench was able to become involved in production on a non-professional basis, building up vital experience that would aid her application to the Central School of Speech and Drama.
Another avenue which was vital to Dench’s career was the several seasons she spent in repertory theatre. Through 1963 and 1964 she divided her time between the Nottingham and Oxford Playhouse. In the past year Dench has lamented the loss of repertory theatres across the country due to cuts. "I always say to young students,” Dench revealed in a recent interview for The Guardian, “Go and see as much as you possibly can', which is what we used to do. But then we paid a pittance for sitting in the gods." Through the removal of repertory programming and lack of disposable income many would-be actors simply cannot afford to see the places, "where you went to learn and make your mistakes and watch people who knew how to do it" as Dench puts it.
Inevitably, the British obsession with class has been present in many of Dench’s most notable film roles. Many of her Oscar nods have been for portraying royalty, Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown (1997) and Elizabeth the First in Shakespeare in Love (1998).
