Dame Judi Dench

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young. Thank you for downloading this podcast of Desert Island Discs from BBC Radio 4. For rights reasons, the music choices are shorter than in the radio broadcast.

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For more information about the programme, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

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My castaway this week is Dame Judy Dench. In an attempt to avoid obsequiousness I'll state the facts as we know them. She has been acting for fifty eight years and counting. Her work ranges across theatre, television, and film.

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If you're planning on buying her a birthday gift, don't make it a doorstop. She has eleven BAFTAs, seven Oliviers, a Tony, two Golden Globes, and an Oscar. Oh, and uh street slang now has the word dench to describe something that's particularly cool.

Presenter1:01

From the stage of the National Theatre to the screen of the multiplex cinema, subtlety and humanity characterize her work. Put simply, audiences love to watch her. She, by contrast, abhors watching herself, and has never seen many of her most noted performances.

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What does she put her sustained success down to? Well, she says.

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Fear generates in you a huge energy. You can use it. When I feel that mounting fear, I think, Oh yes, there it is. It's like petrol. And uh petrol does then, Dame Judy, have uh, you know, a hazardous quality. And I'm wondering if this fear inhasmatry, I think. Yes. Does it have to be carefully handled, your fear?

Dame Judi Dench1:37

Inflammatory, I think, is the word.

Presenter1:42

Well, I think it does generate in you.

Presenter1:45

enormous energy. And, um, I think it's much m more frightening the longer you do it. Why is that? I think that at the beginning you're not so aware of what the pitfalls are and you rather blithely go into it thinking, Well, I'm I've got this part, how lucky, and I'll just go on and play it, you know. And it's only later that you suddenly realise after doing so much uh that well in a way more's expected of you and that makes it then

Dame Judi Dench1:52

Yeah.

Presenter2:16

More hazardous. And is that more true in live performance? You know, if people have bought their tickets and booked the babysitter and they come into the theatre or the arena and think we're going to see Dame Judy, you know, spinting some magic, you know, is it more difficult when a live audience is. Those are the people you don't want to meet before it, I tell you. I well, just the thing about, of course, being in the theatre is that you get a chance to do it again the next day if you make if you mess it up.

Dame Judi Dench2:29

Okay

Dame Judi Dench2:31

Maybe.

Presenter2:43

Most people spend a lot of their life avoiding things that frighten them. Given that that you don't, I'm wondering if you're very brave in other parts of your life. Are you very sort of blisteringly honest with friends? Or do you drive very quickly? Or you know, do you like... I do drive very quickly. Not so much now. I used to drive very quickly indeed.

Dame Judi Dench2:55

But you drive very quickly.

Presenter3:01

But uh no, I don't think so. I've just found that the thing I do, um what goes with it is fear and a kind of anxiety. But you can turn that into something that is useful. I've heard that you like learning something new every day. Is is that still true? I like learning a new

Presenter3:24

A a piece of information each day.

Presenter3:27

I love that. It's um sometimes to make me laugh and sometimes to just think, next time we do a quiz or something at home, I'll use that. So are you on Wikipedia all the time then? I mean I'm not sure. I don't know what that is. I don't know what Wikipedia is. I I mean, I'm the person who barely has an ironing board. Let's hear your first disc of the morning, Dame Judy Dench. What are we going to hear first of all?

Presenter3:50

We're first going to hear Farewell to Stromness. And why have you chosen this? I've chosen it because my passion is Scotland. We used to go every single year, Michael and I, and Finkey. And I am absolutely bewitched by it. And therefore this piece, Farewell to Stromness, Peter Maxwell Davis, it's sublime.

Presenter5:12

Part of Farewell to Stromness, composed and played by Peter Maxwell Davis. Um Shakespeare, Shaw, Ibsen, Pirandello, Chekhov, and on and on and on. We know you for so many of your great stage performances, and never yet a one woman show. Why is that? No, no, that's something I really couldn't possibly do.

Presenter5:31

I couldn't do it because so much part of being in the theatre is being part of a company, being part of kind of jigsaw of um being able to present this finished picture to the audience. And I wouldn't even know who to rely on if it was on my own, and I wouldn't even know who to get ready for.

Presenter5:51

You'd have none of those wonderful larks that go on sometimes in the dressing-room or in a company of people.

Dame Judi Dench5:58

Mm-hmm.

Presenter5:58

Michael used to say that I'm ju he said I know why on axes because you're so nosy you have to know about everybody and what they're doing and whether it's their grandmother's birthday. I don't think it is that really. I think it is very much a part of just being part of something. It's the same syndrome as being on my own. I don't like that. And what happens to you when you're on your own? Oh, everything gloomy. I like it best when I'm looking forward to somebody arriving.

Presenter6:27

This is very unusual. You've had two big T V hit comedies so far: A Fine Romance with your late husband, of course, the actor Michael Williams, and as time goes by, with Geoffrey Palmer.

Presenter6:38

And you've said that sitcom is the most difficult thing you've ever done. I don't understand that.

Presenter6:43

Oh, well, it's very, very simple because you read it on a Tuesday.

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You know it at the end of Wednesday.

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You set it by the end of Wednesday, and then you rehearse it Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Then you do it a comedy for the first time in front of an audience on Sunday.

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And you know, in the theatre, if we're doing a comedy, you have previews and you hear where the laughs are, and you then know how off your timing is, and how to get the laugh. But you don't get that with a situation comedy.

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And at the beginning we used to stand there and they used to introduce us one by one. And every single time of all the fine romance and all as time goes by, I used to stand there every Sunday night and say, How have I got myself into this position? I cannot believe that I've got to go out'cause it it also is splitting the

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The the atom, in a way, because you have to say hello to the audience, hello, yes, very nice, and then suddenly you have to go and do the scene.

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And I read that you hate doing those hellos as yourself, that and also you hate curtain calls. And I c I can't help thinking you've only got yourself to blame on that one. Wh why is it that you hate curtain calls? Well, the same reasons I hate making a speech.

Presenter7:57

You know, because that somehow is not to do with the person I'm trying to be in in the play. Why did you say yes to the Oxford Union then when they asked you along with that? That's a good question. Well, because I had John Miller with me. I've got a buddy with me. So that's all right. But um on my own is quite another thing. Judy Dench, it's time for your second uh disc now. Tell me what we're going to hear.

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Well, my very first night in New York.

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I went to Birdland and as we arrived, it was the two men at the door. This man hit the other one straight through a plate glass door and down the stairs. I thought, this is living and it was Count Basie and Joe Williams that night. It was thrilling.

Speaker 38:40

Well, all right. Okay.

Speaker 38:44

Would you win?

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I'm in love with you, well alright, okay.

Speaker 38:50

Will you win?

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A baby, what can I do?

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I'll do anything you say, and it's just got to be that way.

Speaker 39:00

Well all right.

Speaker 39:02

Okay.

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You wanna, I'm in love with you, alright, okay?

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You wear

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A baby me and you. Anything you say, I'll do

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As long as it's me and you.

Speaker 39:20

About the first thing in the morning

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You've got to wake me with a kiss. You gotta make up for all the loving.

Speaker 39:30

You have made

Speaker 39:33

Alright.

Speaker 39:34

Okay.

Speaker 39:36

When I'm in love with you, well alright, okay.

Presenter9:42

That was Count Basie and all right, okay, you win.

Presenter9:46

Judy Dench, tell me about the Settlement Players in York. Oh, the Settlement Players, they were the most wonderful company in York that my father and mother were both uh part of. My Ma used to make costumes and things. My father used to act. And this was amateur domestic. Yes, he was a doctor.

Dame Judi Dench10:01

And this was amateur domestic.

Presenter10:05

And I did Tobias and the Angel for them. There's a wonderful photograph of you that I've seen, a black and white photograph. There's a group of about six or seven little girls. You are almost, I think you might be the smallest. And, you know, you're all posing on stage. And to be honest, some of them are looking the other way and some of them are not that interested. But there are you perfectly. Well, you might say that. Perfectly holding your dress and staring right down the barrel of the camera.

Dame Judi Dench10:24

Yeah.

Presenter10:31

You always had it, did you? You always had that sort of thing. I don't know. I I I remember playing the snail.

Dame Judi Dench10:33

Uh

Presenter10:37

That was my first performance, and I remember it very well. And my father made me a huge shell, buckram kind of shell, which I had to creep under, and at one point creep out of and when it came to the day that the parents came, I stood up.

Presenter10:53

with this thing tied round me, looking out at everybody, and I just heard this wonderful principal of the school, Miss Meeby, saying,

Presenter11:03

Down, Judith, he said nicely.

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I remember it

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Absolutely vividly. Um, one of the other parts that you were given, I think it was in a school play, and you were the fairy in the Nativity. Do you remember that? I certainly do.

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My friend.

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Elizabeth Blackley, I think, played an angel.

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My other friend David Reimer played a king, and they said,'And you,' they said to me,'will be a fairy.

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And I thought

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That's not a part in the nativity play.

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Excellent.

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That's nothing to do but I want either to be the Virgin Mary or I want to be an angel.

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I did it.

Dame Judi Dench11:44

Hmm.

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But with a crutch.

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What sort of little girl were you? Well, no television. We were always dressed up, always on bikes. Dressed up in costumes. Dressed up in costumes. We had a big hamper.

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and we had all sorts of bits of things in there, and always in other people's gardens, and going to bed and hearing the boys playing cricket in the garden.

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I still don't like going to bend hearing people talking quietly in the garden,'cause I know I'm missing something.

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Let's have some more music, Judy Dench. Tell me about this. My third disc is uh I want my brother Geoffrey, who really inspired me so much about Shakespeare and about being a student and and being an actor. We did a C D called Exits and Entrances and on it he does Shall I Compare Thee to a Summer's Day?

Speaker 212:37

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

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Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

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Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date.

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Sometime too hot the eye of Heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimm'd, And every fair from fair sometime declines, By chance, or nature's changing course

Speaker 213:10

But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st.

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Nor shall death brag thou wanderest in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st.

Speaker 213:29

So long as men can breathe or eyes can see.

Speaker 213:34

So long lives this.

Speaker 213:38

And this gives life to thee.

Presenter13:41

That was your brother Geoffrey Dench with Shakespeare's sonnet number eighteen, and the music was by Jackie Williams. You said during that Dame Judy Dench that you used to call Shakespeare what was it? The man who pays the rent.

Presenter13:54

But most Michael and I were at Stratford all the time, and I'd been at the Vic, and uh so that's what he was known as in our house.

Presenter14:03

In nineteen fifty-seven, you as good as sort of walked out of the doors of Central after you graduated and and straight onto the the stage at the Old Vic. You you were cast to play Ophelia, you were an unknown, the director saw in you not just ability, but but something else that was special, and yet you you were hammered by the critics and you ended up being replaced in that production.

Presenter14:23

How did you I mean, what went through your head at the time? Um, I played it for a year at the Vic, and then when we went to America I didn't play it any more. Well, I think I had to do an enormous swallow and uh

Presenter14:38

I and strangely, after being in six months in America, where we were, and we came back and went to Yugoslavia with it, and I got the part back again. And I had watched Barbara Jefford play Ophelia in America on the tour, and I think I had watched and learnt a great, great deal more.

Presenter14:58

And it is a question of just being allowed to learn it. That's wonderful. I mean, I could have been fired and that would have been it. I don't know what would have happened. But I went on to play lots of other parts that season. And so it was all experience. Do young actors come and and ask you for advice? And I'm sure you're asked all the time to come and give addresses and speeches and be interviewed in in front of young acting students. I mean, do what do they ask you and what do you tell them?

Presenter15:27

They say, How how how do I get the next job? Or how do I get an agent? I mean, I love answering questions from actors. I l is if it's a two-way conversation, I love it. But I can't s stand there and spout about acting. I think acting is I think it's always talked about, and it shouldn't be talked about, it should be done, and it should either be a success or not a success. Just get on, tell the story.

Presenter15:54

So I I can help as far as oh, learning how to use your voice and project. And goodness knows that's a thing at the moment, because I think that drama schools don't teach actors to project any more. And of course in a lot of theatres now you get a mic, you know. We never did. You just learn that the person sitting in the back seat of the upper circle

Presenter16:17

is the person you play to. And I always say to students, if you want to be an actor, do watch other actors. Make up your mind about whether you like that or whether it conveys the story to you, because only that way can you learn.

Presenter16:31

Let's have some more music. We are on your fourth of the morning. Tell me about this disc and why it is that you've particularly chosen it.

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Um when we went to America

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We were there for six months with the vet.

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and I knew nothing about jazz.

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and John Neville who was leading the company.

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Jazz was his passion.

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And gradually I got introduced to jazz, which then was all in kind of underground cellars and things. I mean

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Just magical. And one of the nights.

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I think it was in San Francisco, but it may not have been. I saw Billie Holiday and I heard her sing Strange Fruit.

Dame Judi Dench17:19

Solon tree

Dame Judi Dench17:23

Fair a strange fruit.

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Blood on the leaf

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And blood at the root

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Black bird is swinging

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In the sun.

Dame Judi Dench17:40

A long breeze Strange fruit hanging from the poplar tree

Dame Judi Dench17:59

Hasta Rosine of the gallant sound

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Bulging eyes and the twisted mouth

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Saying oh

Dame Judi Dench18:16

Magnolia

Presenter18:19

That was Billy Holiday and Strange Fruit. I should tell listeners, Dame Judy Dench, that you've been just glancing down your list and saying, Oh, Crikey, I'm not gonna like being on this island at all. What do you're worried about your list? What's wrong with it? I am rather. Now I hear it all together. It's not with the other rather upbeat things. Right. So it's um

Presenter18:38

It's going to make us all drop off, this isn't it? Well, you can always change your mind. It is your list. If at some point you think you want to put in a little bit of Brazzle-Dazzle, you feel free to do that.

Dame Judi Dench18:39

This isn't

Dame Judi Dench18:46

That was

Presenter18:47

Good. Is it is it true that when your daughter Finti was born, you said to Michael your husband, she was born in nineteen seventy two, that you were prepared to give up work altogether?

Presenter18:55

Yes, I did, and Michael said, No, please don't do that.

Presenter18:59

I have two whys. Why did you want to give it up altogether, and why did Michael persuade you that you must not?

Presenter19:06

I wanted to give it up because I wanted to be a a proper mother and be around.

Presenter19:12

And Michael didn't want, I expect, because of the gentleman who pays the rent, I expect. I'm not sure.

Presenter19:18

Um you lived not just with your husband and your daughter, but also with your parents-in-law and with your mother. Now, I think that's a commendable idea.

Presenter19:28

What in practice, how how was that? It was uh fantastically worthwhile. It happened for twelve years and a family community was something that I always wanted. And my Pa had died, so one Easter Michael's parents and my ma all came for Easter, and we were in a tiny cottage in Stratford, and they all just got on so well, and we had the most lovely time. And it was Michael, actually, who said to me when they'd gone back, Wouldn't it be rather wonderful to have everybody together? And that's what we did. We said to them, Would you like to do that? and they all said absolutely we would. And we had a house outside Stratford, Charcot.

Dame Judi Dench19:30

Exactly.

Presenter20:11

And that's how we all lived. It wasn't it wasn't easy sometimes. We used you know, those all

Presenter20:18

It's always something brewing, but it was terribly exciting and it was terribly lively. And Fint remembers it because she, you know, was brought up with her grandparents, not my parlass, and it was a glorious time. There aren't many acting couples who manage successful careers both and a successful marriage. I'm wondering how you and Michael negotiated that for thirty years until he passed away. You know, you you had that situation that that's rare.

Dame Judi Dench20:45

That's it.

Presenter20:48

It it was rare. I don't know how we negotiated it. It was just one of those wonderfully

Presenter20:53

Lucky and

Presenter20:55

remarkable things had happened, that we both worked all the time.

Presenter20:59

And, you know, and Finji was there with us, and so we somehow managed it, that one of us was around all the time while she was growing up. It's something of a burden to take upon yourself uh for your daughter, isn't it, when your mother uh and indeed father are so well known for something to say I want a nightmare, yes, absolute nightmare. And I think that people, you know.

Dame Judi Dench21:15

I think it's a nightmare.

Presenter21:21

compare and to say things. I don't think it's it's kind when people do that at all. I think it makes it very, very difficult. And nor do I think there's a necessity for it. Did you ever try to persuade her to take a look at it? Because she wanted originally to be an acrobatic nurse.

Dame Judi Dench21:33

To pick up something else.

Presenter21:37

And so we said, Pretty good, Adolf said. I said, Every one will want the one who comes swinging down the ward upside down to take your th your temperature.

Presenter21:47

Let's have your next bit of music then, Judy Dench. We are.

Presenter21:51

We're on your fifth.

Presenter21:52

When Fint was at Central, she has a lovely singing voice, and she was in a little night music, which I had never seen before.

Presenter22:02

And I just fell for it in such a big way, and I don't think it was long after that.

Presenter22:09

Oh, a few years, I think, and I was asked to play Desiree in the National Theatre production of Little Night Music, and then I became a complete devotee of Stephen Sondheim, who I think is a genius. And I love this song. I love it from Follies.

Presenter22:28

The sun comes up.

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I think about

Dame Judi Dench22:32

I

Presenter22:36

The coffee cup

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I think about you.

Dame Judi Dench22:39

I

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I want you so it's like I'm losing my mind

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The morning ends.

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Uh

Dame Judi Dench23:01

I

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The

Presenter23:03

Dorothy Collins as Sally with Losing My Mind from the original cast recording of Stephen Sondheim's Follies, It is ridiculous, Dame Judy Dench to try to encompass.

Presenter23:12

All the awards that you have earned. So I've decided that we might just take a snapshot. And the snapshot I want to take is from 2001. You were awarded a BAFTA for playing the writer Iris Murdoch, and you were also awarded a BAFTA Fellowship that year for your outstanding contribution to T V and film. What are your memories of that time?

Presenter23:34

Well

Presenter23:36

It was a rather kind of grim time for me, that, because Michael had just died and I was not in a frightfully wonderful place. Um and uh I just remember Billy Connolly being very, very, very funny,'cause my BAFTA fellowship was at the Haymarket.

Presenter23:54

And Fint and I sat on the front row. He made us laugh a lot, and that was lovely. Sir Richard Attenborough, Dickie Attenborough, too, gave it to me. And I didn't really have a speech. I was completely overwhelmed.

Presenter24:07

And then I kind of immersed myself in in a lot of work, one after another. I went and did a bit of the shipping news so many weeks, and then I came home and did the whole of Iris, and then I went back and did the rest of the shipping news, and then I came home and did I think the importance of being earnest. Yes, the importance. And it that was, you know, that was using up the petrol.

Presenter24:29

How much time did you did you did you take time away from acting after your husband died? Did you say, Well, that el everything's No, I don't think I did. Did you not?

Dame Judi Dench24:36

Yeah.

Presenter24:37

No, and I think it was the best thing I could do, and it was also being with

Presenter24:42

Incredible people. Kevin Spacey was phenomenal.

Presenter24:46

Wonderful, really fantastic friend. As then was Richard Eyre and Jim Broadbent when I came back to do Iris and, you know, spread amongst friends. It was good. Richard Eyre, who directed you in Iris, has spoken about your ability to switch in and out of character. He said it's almost an unbelievable thing. He watched you do it, particularly in Iris, where you would be relating a sort of funny story or a joke or something, and then it would come to the moment, and this might be a moment that many people remember in that film, where Iris Murdoch is deep into her Alzheimer's and she is being read to by her husband, and she says the thing about I wrote I wrote book.

Presenter25:27

Funnily enough, I would do that quite differently now. But then, you know, that's the thing about film.

Presenter25:33

Suddenly you you look at the screen, and you know there are so many buttons you you can press in order to convey something, and then you look at the screen and think

Presenter25:44

Why on earth were those the buttons I pressed, when I could have pressed another one and been, you know, it's the choice you have to make, and it's fixed for ever. You can't change it. May I ask you how you would do it now? What what would you do? What the eye wrote. I don't know, but I've done it quietly in my room since seeing it, and I know there's another way of doing it.

Presenter26:08

Um we're going to hear some more music, uh Dame Judy Dench. Tell me about this. We're on your sixth of the day. I expect this is something gloomy. Um it's your list. Six. This is Sinatra, who I think I've probably chosen every time I've been ever asked to choose a record. Um I can't be anywhere actually without Frank Sinatra. Michael and I.

Presenter26:31

saw him at the Albert Hall and uh we went to a pub for a drink beforehand and Michael started crying in the pub before before we even got there. He said that Sinatra got more people in and out of bed than anyone in history. Of course he's quite right.

Dame Judi Dench26:48

I've got you.

Speaker 226:52

Under my skin

Speaker 226:56

I've got you.

Dame Judi Dench26:59

Yeah.

Speaker 226:59

Deep in the heart of me

Dame Judi Dench27:02

Yeah.

Speaker 227:03

So deep in my heart that you're really a part of me.

Speaker 227:11

I've got you.

Speaker 227:14

One

Speaker 327:15

Under my skin

Dame Judi Dench27:19

I tried so not to give in.

Dame Judi Dench27:26

Uh

Speaker 227:26

I said to myself, This affair never will go so well.

Speaker 227:34

But why should I try to resist when baby I know so well I've got you

Speaker 227:45

Under my skin.

Speaker 327:46

And

Presenter27:49

I've got you under my skin, that was Frank Sinatra. So, Dame Judy Dench, Dustin Hoffman, Robert Hardy, Daniel Craig, you've had them all. Who's been your favourite leading man?

Presenter28:00

It's an absolutely impossible question. Well, a few favourites then.

Dame Judi Dench28:03

Well a few

Presenter28:05

I don't know the answer to who's my favourite leading man actually, except that all of them, bar one, I think, had glorious senses of humour. And no, I'm not going to tell you who Barnes has. The glories of being M, you know, you I mean it was a I don't know if it was a wonderful part to play, goodness knows it was a wonderful part to watch. You've said goodbye to her now. She she is gone, but I'm guessing very fond memories of that period. Yeah, glorious memories, absolutely glorious memories. I didn't for a second ever imagine that I would play it. And I was a huge fan of the Bond films. And I have 17 years and did seven films.

Dame Judi Dench28:15

Oh damn.

Dame Judi Dench28:31

Yeah, I'm glue.

Presenter28:46

Four with Pearce, three with Daniel.

Presenter28:49

And just the most glorious time. Here's the interesting thing, I think, that uh talking to people about you it can often be the case there if I'm interviewing a a very well known actor.

Presenter28:59

People will say, Oh, I loved him in blah blah. About you they don't say they love you in a part, they say they love you. There is a huge well of affection for you as an individual. What do you make of that?

Presenter29:11

Well, that's very, very nice to hear. They should have seen some of my performances. They'd have had a hideous time. I kind of half-heartedly keep a book on this about what people say when they come round after the theatre. It's very, very illuminating. Backstage, what gives us a well you'll get a knock on the door and and you'll say, Come in, and they'll come in and say, Well, how are you? You think

Dame Judi Dench29:30

Well you

Presenter29:39

You know how I am, you've just seen me. Um or or they say.

Presenter29:44

You must be exhausted.

Presenter29:48

Good book, actually. Good book to bring out for Christmas.

Presenter29:52

Slim, but

Presenter29:54

Might be worthwhile.

Presenter29:56

Let's go to the music then. Oh, in fact, we're not going to the music, but we are going to your seventh. Tell me about this. This is something that I listen to regularly.

Presenter30:06

It's the shipping forecast.

Presenter30:09

Every night that I hear it, I go right round the country listening to them all. I see the country so clearly, and the most romantic of the names, almost, is Finisterre, or was Finisterre, because now, of course, Finisterre has been changed to Fitzroy. And I know that Fitzroy was remarkable, and he actually is responsible for a weather forecast. But at the same time, I miss Finisterre, and I'm just very sad for the same reason that I'm sad that they don't play all those wonderful British tunes in the morning, very, very early, like early one morning. And I loved that. Um, but I love the the whole idea of Land's End and Finisterre.

Presenter30:52

I loved it. And now the shipping forecast issued by the Met Office at 0505 on Saturday, the first of december, two thousand one.

Presenter31:01

The rewardings of gales in Viking, North at Serra, South at Serra, Forties, Cromity, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, Biscay, Irish Sea, Malin, Faroes, and South East Iceland.

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The area forecasts for the next twenty four hours.

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German Byte, Humber, Thames, Dover.

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South five to seven, veering north or north east three or four rain dying out, moderate or poor becoming good.

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White, Portland, Plymouth, Biscay.

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South west five to seven, occasionally gale eight at first in Biscay, veering east three or four rain at first, moderate or poor, becoming good.

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Finnister

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South west five to seven at first in south east, otherwise north five or six, occasionally seven later in south, becoming variable three or four in north. Rain or showers, moderate or good.

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Sol, Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea.

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West or north west five to seven, increasing gale eight in Irish Sea for a time, backing south four or five, occasionally six later in West Seoul.

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Squally showers, moderate or good.

Presenter32:19

Part of a shipping forecast from two thousand one, including a reference there to the area of Finisterre, your favourite, read by Cory Corfield, specially recorded for you, Dame Judy. And our thanks go to the Met Office for providing uh that script from their archives. Um what do you look for now in your life?

Presenter32:38

You seem quite a spontaneous person to me. Are you a planner?

Presenter32:42

I don't I don't plan much. I just hope to go on working.

Presenter32:46

And just, you know, enjoy good health, I say touch wood, and overcome the things that I think I can't do, like read a book any more. Oh, this is macular degeneration which you have and somehow adjust and make it as nice to hear a book.

Dame Judi Dench32:57

The generation which

Presenter33:03

as read one.

Presenter33:05

A little bit of desert islandry then. Cast away alone on this island, uh annoyed that you don't have friends and family and a caste around you.

Presenter33:14

Will you be very practical? I mean, could could you fish? Could you gut a rabbit? No, no, no. I couldn't um no, I couldn't do any of those things. I couldn't uh catch an animal and kill it. I'm terrible hypocrite. Um I shouldn't eat meat at all.

Presenter33:31

You cook? And I'm mad Can I cook? No, I can't. And I'm mad about lobster. But then I saw them on the seabed, all walking along the seabed, holding claws like that. So it was a dodgy few months after that. But then suddenly I overcame it. You struggled through. And struggled through and ate one.

Presenter33:49

But I no, I'd have I'd have to be on the berries. Tell me about your final piece this morning then. What are we going to hear, Dunjudy Dench? I have to take Miles Davis with me on my island. Although my really up musical upbringing is really entirely classical, I'm still rather amazed at this this extraordinary list I've chosen. But I would have to take Miles Davis, because I knew him in New York too. Did you? Yes. Because we were six months in America and we just, you know, followed everybody around. He was a friend of one of the actors in the company, Job Stewart. And so we went and heard him playing. And so now, the moment I hear him, I'm back in one of those wonderful smoky rooms. Oh, in New York. Glorious.

Presenter35:45

Miles Davis, and Blue in Green. So, Judy Dench, it's time for me to give you those books. You're going to get the Bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and you get to take along one other book. What will your book be?

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I'm not sure that this might not be

Presenter35:59

Amalgamating two things, but

Presenter36:01

If I can have an audio.

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Machine?

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And what I would love is

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More than anything, I would love my daughter to have recorded.

Presenter36:12

Wavells are the men's flowers. We can definitely give you that, because given your macular degeneration, a book is not going to be much use to you, so we certainly will give you an audio book with your daughter Finty Williams reading that for you. And a luxury, too.

Presenter36:26

My luxury. I'm going to turn my island into kind of Easter Island,'cause I would like cut outs of all my friends and my family and the people I love most. I would like cut outs of them, and then I would put them up and rearrange them all round the island. You may certainly have those. Um, and one of the discs to save. Which one of the list would you save? And you're grimacing now.

Presenter36:52

Because you're worried that you've chosen far too downbeat a list, but I'm gonna force you to choose one. I shall want something very upbeat. Um I will take

Dame Judi Dench36:56

So you should

Presenter37:03

I'm so sorry. I don't want any of those.

Presenter37:10

I don't want to go to the iron. I don't want any of those records with me.

Presenter37:15

Uh, what'll I take?

Presenter37:17

I'll take

Presenter37:18

Sinatra. Right. It's yours then. I've got you under my skin. That's yours. Dame Judy Denge, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs. Thank you, Kirsten.

Presenter37:31

What a light man!

Presenter38:14

You've been listening to a download from the BBC. You'll find more information on the Radio 4 website: bbc.co.uk slash Radio 4.