Behind the Scenes (9781466882195) Page 3

  We were weeping with hysteria, I don’t know how we got through it.

  Lady Macbeth with Ian McKellen as Macbeth, The Other Place, Stratford, 1976

  The middle girl is wondering how she can play the rest of this part! I should never have taken the role of Regan in King Lear. I blame Mike Gwilym and Nick Grace for putting me off the part. I had a long fur coat, very Zhivagoesque, in which I thought I looked very chic, until they said, ‘If you run in that fur coat somebody will take a pot-shot at you.’

  Regan in King Lear with Marilyn Taylerson as Cordelia and Barbara Leigh-Hunt as Goneril, Stratford, 1976

  Here I am in rehearsal with John Woodvine and Barbara Leigh-Hunt. We have our Lear faces on. That rehearsal room is now the Swan Theatre.

  CORNWALL

  Seek out the traitor Gloster.

  REGAN

  Hang him instantly.

  GONERIL

  Pluck out his eyes.

  I found it very hard to take the physical cruelty in Regan.

  We were never so fit as during this production of Trevor Nunn’s musical based on The Comedy of Errors, because of the class exercises that the brilliant choreographer Gillian Lynne put us through every morning. The open-air taverna in John Napier’s set looked like something out of a travel brochure for Greece, and I have never had so many letters from schoolchildren.

  It was enormously good fun. At the end we invited the audience up on the stage to dance along with us. When we took it to Newcastle the audience wouldn’t go home. We finally had to say, ‘Would you mind going home, we have to get back to our hotel?’ Those children’s letters showed how this production transformed their view of Shakespeare, and converted them to want to come again.

  On the last night John Woodvine as Dr Pinch entered from the audience, saying ‘You stay there, Aphrodite.’ When I said ‘Good Doctor…’ he replied ‘I’m not a Good Doctor, I don’t have the patients.’ That was funnier on the stage than it is on the page.

  Adriana in The Comedy of Errors, Stratford, 1976

  left to right: Richard Griffiths, Nickolas Grace, Roger Rees, Francesca Annis, me, Mike Gwilym, Michael Williams

  Cymbeline was a difficult play, and this was my most difficult moment, when I woke up beside Bob Peck’s headless body. The dummy’s knees weren’t made accurately, and kept bending the wrong way.

  Imogen in Cymbeline with Ben Kingsley as Iachimo, Stratford, 1979

  The restoration comedy The Way of the World was the first time I played opposite Michael Pennington. Here we are struggling in vain to work out the plot, and I don’t think any of us understood it. But we had great fun with it. John Woodvine had to hand someone something to sign and one night, instead of handing him a quill pen, he handed him a whole bird.

  Juno in Juno and the Paycock, with Gerard Murphy as Johnny Boyle, Aldwych, 1980

  When we were rehearsing Sean O’Casey’s play Juno and the Paycock I was finding it very difficult at one point and I said to Trevor Nunn, ‘Haven’t you got some mangy old cat that I could play in this musical you’re going to do?’ I said it as a joke and then I was cast as Grizabella; I was also going to play Gumby Cat, but I never played either of them in the end, because I snapped my Achilles tendon.

  In costume for Cats, 1980

  We had many holidays camping in the west of Scotland. One year we got so soaked that all our changes of clothes were soaked too. Then I remembered that Tom Fleming had recently performed the opening ceremony of a hotel for Robin and Sheena Buchanan-Smith on the Isle of Eriska. He said, ‘It’s a wonderful place, you’ll all love it.’ So we went and threw ourselves on their mercy and they said, ‘Of course we’ll dry everything off and you can stay.’

  The next day they said, ‘Go off and have a lovely day; we’ve got another place for you to pitch your tent.’ In fact we were put up in their house in Lymphoy and that’s how that friendship began, and our love of Eriska. We’ve been going there ever since. We used to pile up the lilos and duvets in the back of the car, and Finty used to clamber in and just sleep on top of them all while we listened to the children’s stories on the radio. She slept her way all round Scotland. We both have such vivid memories of being in our sleeping bags in our tent, and Michael sitting with a lamp and a vodka, reading us ghost stories. We had great times in the tent, until Finty suddenly developed a wish for a warmer beach. We were in a loch way up on the west coast of Scotland and it was paralysingly cold. Michael was shouting at us from the shore, ‘You don’t have to do this, you know, you are on holiday.’

  With Peter Hall in rehearsal for The Importance of Being Earnest

  JUDI

  Are you sure she can be played at this age?

  PETER

  I don’t want you to say that again.

  I had no idea how to play Lady Bracknell. Peter Hall gave me two weeks off during rehearsals and we took the car up to Scotland and stopped at Inveraray for lunch on the way up. I looked at the Castle and thought of Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, with that very pale face, dark hair and red mouth. It was a great clue. There’s also a quality in Lady Bracknell that could be quite predatory. She is so awful about Lord Bracknell and was always dying to get round to Half Moon Street to put her hand on Algy’s knee. I had a more coquettish hat made, with a whole bird in it.

  One night I skipped the line ‘A handbag?’ and I saw the whites of Martin Jarvis’s eyes! But he exquisitely came to the rescue and I don’t think many of the audience noticed the omission, even though it’s crucial for the last scene and the play. I got one indignant letter from a lady who said I’d ruined Christmas for her.

  Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest with, top, Nigel Havers as Algy and, above, Martin Jarvis as Jack Worthing, Lyttelton Theatre, 1982

  Here I am on location in Thailand filming Saigon: Year of the Cat with my co-star Freddie Forrest outside the US Embassy, and with the director Stephen Frears. Freddie had worked with Marlon Brando, who taught him to improvise his own lines instead of speaking those in the script. This didn’t go down very well either with David Hare or Stephen Frears.

  We had a scene where we were evacuated in a helicopter, and the day before we shot it a helicopter had crashed on that very airfield, so Stephen hid the newspapers from me. I would, in fact, have taken comfort from that, because if it’s going to happen one day, it’s unlikely to happen the next, is it?

  The photo below was taken at Charlecote when I had just got back from filming. Finty came out to Thailand for a while to stay with me and we had a lovely time; it was where she learnt to dive.

  I have always loved living in the country. We were thinking of moving from Charlecote when our parents were no longer with us, and Michael saw a picture of this house in Country Life. He sent off for the details without telling me, but as soon as we walked inside we knew it was just what we wanted. It’s an old farm-house with oak beams, which are a bit of a hazard to my taller friends, and we have been so happy here. Even when I am playing nightly in the theatre in London I like to come back here every night.

  We bought Henry, our first Shih-Tzu for Finty when she was little. We had to call him Henry, because we saw him in a shop in Sloane Street. He was adorable, and used to come and sit in at rehearsals (sometimes!) with me. Now we have another Shih-Tzu called Minnie.

  I was making a TV film about York, where I was born. I took Finty to my school, and the Shambles, and the Minster. The film was called Judi Dench looks at York or some such title. I have never actually seen it.

  Returning to York with Finty

  Laura in A Fine Romance with Richard Warwick, Susan Penhaligon and Michael, 1980

  My first situation comedy, A Fine Romance, was directed by the divine Jimmy Cellan-Jones, who wore sandals the whole time, even in the snow. We were rehearsing in the church by Waterloo Bridge, and it was our wedding anniversary in February. Michael went to the flower seller under Waterloo Bridge and said, ‘Could I have some roses?’

  ‘Roses!!? D’you know what time of th
e year it is, mate!?’

  When I was singing one day in that church, the verger came up and said, ‘Don’t do that.’ I never forgot that. Stop singing in church!

  I adored playing Barbara in Pack of Lies, but it was very difficult. She was a very quiet and restrained person, so I found it difficult to pitch the performance to the back of the circle. Michael broke your heart.

  Barbara in Pack of Lies with Michael Williams as Bob, Lyric Theatre, 1983

  Mother Courage and Her Children with Zoe Wanamaker, Bruce Alexander and Stephen Moore, Barbican, 1984

  I had clearly in my mind that the wig should be red and look as if just anybody had cut it, so it was always standing on end. When I said this to the costume designer Lindy Hemming on the first day, she produced the design she had already done with red hair exactly like it. But the rehearsals didn’t really work for me until I found Michael’s old coat that he had worn in Schweyk in the Second World War.

  Amy O’Connell in Waste with Daniel Massey as Henry Trebell, Barbican, 1985. I lost my voice at the opening, until Cicely Berry brought it back with some special vocal exercises, to everyone’s great relief, especially mine.

  Mrs Alving in Ghosts with Michael Gambon as Pastor Manders, Natasha Richardson and Kenneth Branagh, directed by Elijah Moshinsky, 1985

  The design for the BBC’s production of Ghosts was very stark. The only colour on the set was a great big pile of green apples. This was the first time I worked with Kenneth Branagh, who played my son Oswald. Ibsen’s play is a sombre one, as Mrs Alving discovers that her son has inherited syphilis, but we had one moment when we laughed so much we were sent home in disgrace. Elijah Moshinsky wanted to put the opening titles over a panning shot round the dining table with a music track. We were asked to improvise a conversation that would only be heard under the music as a murmur. Natasha Richardson as the maid came round with a dish of potatoes, and offered them first to Michael Gambon, who said: ‘I’ll just have the usual twelve.’ Ken and I couldn’t contain ourselves and corpsed helplessly. Elijah’s voice came over the tannoy: ‘Thank you Mr Branagh, Miss Dench, you can leave the studio, thank you, we’ve got that.’

  Mr and Mrs Edgehill was filmed for the BBC in Sri Lanka and I said I could go, but Finty’s birthday came in the middle of it and I was reluctant to be away at this time. Alan Shallcross offered to fly me home, as long as I worked right up to the moment I got on the plane, and worked the moment I came back. We had a wonderful birthday party and I brought Finty back some sapphire earrings. When I got back I was on the set within minutes of arriving. They built a beautiful house for us on the shore, which, of course, was demolished later. It was the most wonderful setting.

  Mr and Mrs Edgehill with Ian Holm, 1985

  Mr and Mrs Edgehill, 1985

  I did The Browning Version with Ian Holm in 1985 for television. I love this picture because it doesn’t look like me; it just looks like the character.

  Michael as Dr Watson to Clive Merrison’s Sherlock Holmes, BBC Radio, 1989

  This was a publicity shoot for Radio Times and the only time Michael and Clive ever had to dress the part. It was a great partnership and the two of them were so brilliant together; the series ran for ages. They recorded a comic parody in which Sherlock Holmes confesses his secret love for Watson, which was never broadcast, but was played at Michael’s memorial service.

  Michael in September Song, 1993. I love this picture of Michael, and he had a huge success in that part.

  Carrie Pooter in Mr & Mrs Nobody with Michael as Charles Pooter, Garrick Theatre, 1986

  Ned Sherrin was lovely to work with on Mr & Mrs Nobody: precise, and funny, and very, very astute, then suddenly he’d sit back and say, ‘Look out, the Williamses are on automatic pilot.’

  We thought it was going to be a doddle, a really short evening, get a lot of laughs and straight home, but it was desperately hard work. However, working in those very heavy costumes meant I lost a lot of weight before I tackled Cleopatra.

  Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra, Olivier Theatre, 1987

  It is interesting but often quite hard returning to plays from your youth in the more mature parts, moving from Ophelia to Gertrude, and Anya to Madame Ranevskaya – both had such echoes for me – and I couldn’t get Peggy Ashcroft’s performance in The Cherry Orchard out of my mind. But Cleopatra was such a challenge. I said to Peter Hall, ‘I do hope you know what you’re doing, casting her as a menopausal dwarf.’

  I will never forget what Peter said to me about playing Cleopatra, I have passed it on to so many people. He said, ‘Don’t ever think you have got to play all aspects of the character in every scene. Just choose one thing. At the end of the evening it might add up to the full person. The other thing’ – which would never have even occurred to me – ‘is don’t imagine that when other characters speak about you, they are telling the truth.’

  He gave the example of Enobarbus (which was so wonderfully played by Michael Bryant at the National) getting back to Rome, and that scene is really about him in the bar with his mates. ‘Come on, tell us, what’s she like?’ He is telling a tale.

  Cleopatra in Antony and Cleopatra with Anthony Hopkins as Antony, Olivier Theatre, 1987

  Red Nose Day for Cleopatra. No, I did not wear it on stage!

  At Buckingham Palace with Finty and Michael the day I received my DBE, 1988.

  Johnny Mills was an incorrigible practical joker, worse than me. When we were in the musical of The Good Companions together, there was an actor in the company who was not behaving very well, so Johnny suggested that we put stage weights in his suitcase for the Going Away number. He couldn’t lift the suitcase, let alone swing it about. John and I were both told we were amateurs.

  The night he and Mary invited Michael and me to join him for supper at Overton’s after the show he caught me by surprise when he handed me the menu onstage to place my order in advance, as the kitchens would be closed when we got there. I told those stories at his memorial service in June 2005, which was a very nostalgic occasion, as we all remembered what a lovely man he was.

  This photograph of him, Michael and me was taken at his eightieth birthday celebration.

  That’s me on the right in the photo above. We have always done lots of aqua-ballets, from the Nottingham West African tour in the mid-1960s, at the big pool in Kaduna when we completely emptied it of people, to another on a rough day in the sea at Dubrovnik, while we were on tour with Hamlet with the National Theatre.

  With Michael Gough as Firs

  The Cherry Orchard has such memories for me of Peggy Ashcroft when we were at the Aldwych. Playing Anya first, then following Peggy as Ranevskaya, and all those echoes of John Gielgud and everybody. It was impossible to clear my mind of how Peggy had played it.

  Michael Gough gave a radio interview just after we opened and said, ‘I am working with three of the most attractive women in the West End.’ So when he arrived at the theatre that evening I got together Miranda Foster, Lesley Manville, Abigail McKern and Kate Duchene, and we all lined up in front of him. I said, ‘OK, Michael, who are the three?’ We never let him forget that!

  Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard with Miranda Foster as Anya, Aldwych, 1989

  Hamlet with Daniel-Day Lewis, Olivier Theatre, 1989. I thought, I’ll try and play Gertrude like Jill Balcon, Dan’s mother, very tall and dark, but I never succeeded!

  We couldn’t get through the first reading of The Sea, we laughed so much. With twenty minutes of the play to run after our final exits Celia Imrie and I used to drink a small glass of champagne in the wings before the curtain call. Mrs Rafi was a deeply unpleasant character, and I got a letter from somebody saying how dare I call the play a comedy. They had come after a funeral and had expected to see something rather different. Mrs Rafi was a monster, but it was hugely good fun to play her.

  Mrs Rafi in The Sea with Karl Johnson and Christabel Dilks, Lyttelton Theatre, 1991

  Ken Branagh asked me to direct him as Jimmy Porter in Lo
ok Back in Anger. It was put on for just one week in Belfast, to raise funds for charities in Northern Ireland. We only had two weeks’ rehearsal, which was very short.

  Look Back in Anger, 1989. Left to right: Edward Jewesbury, Emma Thompson, me, Kenneth Branagh and Gerard Horan

  I look as if I’m about to produce a rabbit from under my shawl. We had a nice time at Chichester performing Coriolanus, except for the night I fell over onstage and couldn’t get up. They had to stop the play and ask if there was a doctor in the house. Fortunately there was, and he strapped up my sprained ankle, so I finished the performance leaning on a stick. At the curtain call Ken usually came on last, but this night he leapt out first, and then with an exaggerated gesture led me out to a great wave of sympathetic applause. I was rather overwhelmed by the ovation, until Ken restored my equilibrium by hissing ‘Get off the stage, you limping bitch!’