Dame Judi Dench has delighted thousands of film, television and theatre lovers by playing two queens of England, countless Shakespearean roles and James Bond\u2019s strict MI5 boss \u2018M\u2019 \u2013 but there\u2019s one person who perhaps wasn\u2019t her biggest fan. <\/p>\n
The 91-year-old has shared an anecdote from her childhood on a new podcast\u2026 and let\u2019s just say, \u2018nightmare kids next door\u2019 is the phrase that comes to mind. <\/p>\n
Appearing on the BBC\u2019s This Natural Life podcast, Dench confesses to playing a prank on a neighbour, starting the tale with the ominous: \u201cThis is a terrible story.\u201d <\/p>\n
Referring to her older brothers, she continues: \u201cThe boys used to play cricket in the garden, and they used to be always batting the balls over into the other gardens, and there was a lady called Miss Lazenby, and she never ever would throw the ball back, or give us the balls back.\u201d <\/p>\n
So far, so good, right? Well\u2026 <\/p>\n
Dame Judi Dench (PA)She continued: \u2018Once the boys found a dead rat in the barn, and they parcelled it up, and they said to me, \u2018Judi, will you just go round and put this through Miss Lazenby\u2019s door?\u2019.\u201d <\/p>\n
The children then wrote a note saying \u2018please give us our balls back\u2019 and attached it to the rat. \u201cSo I did go and squeeze it through Miss Lazenby\u2019s door,\u201d Dench confessed. Unsurprisingly, she added they \u201cprobably\u201d didn\u2019t get the cricket balls back. <\/p>\n
Dench, who was made a dame for services to acting in 1987, has taken a step back from acting in recent years due to health issues. <\/p>\n
In 2012, the Mrs Brown star revealed she had been diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration, a degenerative eye condition described as the biggest cause of sight loss in the UK. <\/p>\n
While the condition doesn\u2019t cause total blindness, it can make everyday activities quite difficult.<\/p>\n
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In an interview to mark her 91st birthday in December last year, Dench also revealed she has had short-term memory issues \u2013 but said she can still recall lines she learnt decades ago. <\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t remember what I am doing tomorrow, I swear to you,\u201d Dench told Radio Times, before saying she felt lucky to still be able to remember great reams of Shakespeare.<\/p>\n
Over the course of Dench\u2019s seven-decade career on stage and screen, she has become one of the country\u2019s most decorated stars, garnering one Oscar, one Tony, two Golden Globes, four TV Baftas, six film Baftas and seven Olivier awards. <\/p>\n
Last month, she was left \u201ctruly overwhelmed\u201d when The Shaftesbury Theatre announced it was changing its name to honour her. <\/p>\n
Dench in a \u201860s production of A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream (Getty)The theatre said the tribute \u201cwill ensure Dame Judi\u2019s legacy continues to inspire future generations of performers and audiences alike\u201d, with Chief Executive Eleanor Lang stating: \u201cWe don\u2019t celebrate brilliant women enough in our West End theatre names, so we are delighted that her name will be forever in lights above our doorway.\u201d <\/p>\n
Dench, a founding member of the Theatre of Comedy collective who had shares in the Shaftesbury Theatre, said: \u201cMy relationship to the Theatre of Comedy and to the Taffner family goes back many years and to have this beautiful theatre renamed after me is truly overwhelming.<\/p>\n
\u201cLive theatre continues to be so important as a way of telling stories and entertaining audiences, something I have aimed to do all my working life.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dame Judi Dench has delighted thousands of film, television and theatre lovers by playing two queens of England, countless Shakespearean roles and James Bond\u2019s strict MI5 boss \u2018M\u2019 \u2013 but there\u2019s one person who perhaps wasn\u2019t her biggest fan. The 91-year-old has shared an anecdote from her childhood on a new podcast\u2026 and let\u2019s just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[173],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\n