From the Archive: Dame Judi Dench

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1:14Dame Judi Dench is not just a national and international treasure. She's an interplanetary treasure. If there is life on Mars, they're talking about her most recent performance. Judy is a woman of warmth, a woman of wit. A friend tells a story that when he mentioned to Judy hadn't seen the royal family, Judy replied, tell me when you're coming and I'll be sure to overact for you. After we record this conversation, Judy's having lunch in the River Cafe. We are planning to definitely overcook for this woman, a friend I admire, respect and adore.

2:05On the mains, well, we've got these beautiful, really sweet grapes at the moment, which pairs so well with the grouse. And there's turbot and sea bass. Oh my word. You can have munch fish. You can have everything. We have had people come and order everything on the menu. Just have it all. And do they stay for a month? For a month, yeah. Yes. For a month, yeah.

2:32I always say a recipe is half science and half poetry. And so we're going to skip the science and read the poetry. How about that? Yes, well, I would love to have read a recipe. Or even given you a recipe. but we'll come to that later but you are talking to the worst cook in Britain. And I think you said it wasn't a sonnet about food but I just know there's one poem but it's Hilaire Belloc and it's about Henry King. Henry King. Henry King, here he goes. The chief defect of Henry King was chewing little bits of string. At last he swallowed some that tied itself in ugly knots inside. physicians of the utmost fame were called at once but when they came they answered as they took their fees there is no cure for this disease henry will very soon be dead his parents stood about his bed lamenting his untimely death when henry cried with latest breath oh my friends be warned by me that breakfast, dinner, lunch and tea are all the human frame requires.

3:44With that, the wretched child expires. The wretched child. So what do you make of this poem? He was quite a lecturer, Belloc, wasn't he? He liked to tell everyone what to do and children how to be polite. It's rather sad. He was rather grim, I think, Belloc. Well, I think there's a message, right? Don't snack, is that the message, or you might... Don't snack. Yes.

4:14What was it like growing up? You grew up in Yorkshire, yeah? I did. I was born in York. My brothers were born in Lancashire. My mother was from Dublin. My father from Dorset, who went to Dublin. And recently, in the last year, I found out that my mother's side of the family is Danish and goes back to somebody who worked at the Danish, at Elsinore, in fact. Wow, Elsinore. And was there when Shakespeare's first company went over there. I was brought up during the war. I was five when the war broke out. And we were very lucky because my pa was a doctor. And he used to visit all the farms all around York as well as York itself.

5:00and everyone used to say, oh, do have a chicken, do have goose, do have a duck. We were really lucky. And that way we always had food and things and that's also why we had 16 cats because there was nobody else in the navel. 16 cats? We did. 16? Because nobody wanted their pets. Yeah, they couldn't feed them or take care of them. Put them out, but they all came round to our place. It was a triumph. And who would cook the food? Would your mother, would you sit down to family meals? Yes, always. How many, do you have siblings? Two brothers. Yeah. Two brothers older than me. And we always had the house full of friends.

5:42Meals were a great thing. I'm always trying to say now, you know, do enjoy sitting down at the table and not looking at the phone, if possible. What was it like then, mealtime at your house? Was there always a discussion and conversations? Always singing. Singing? A lot of singing. My ma playing the piano. Oh, OK. My father could recite the whole of the Mord Arthur. My brother, Geoff, who was an actor long before me and at Stratford, used to know reams of Shakespeare. And it was a kind of... I think that was in the family very much before, that people used to be able to... I mean, I remember sitting on the stairs and hearing friends who were invited round and somebody singing and playing the piano and, you know, you couldn't miss the arts.

6:32So when you think of your early meals, you think more of the performance. I think only of family meals round the table. And it was a family thing that you wouldn't miss because that's when you got to actually discuss things and talk about things. And who would cook, your mother? My ma would cook. Or we had a wonderful person called Sissy. What did she cook? Because Yorkshire has a very definite regional food. What do you eat in Yorkshire? Well, of course, it was mostly what you could afford to get. Yeah. And I remember there was a market in York, a wonderful market, and you'd go around and people would come in and they'd have a chicken in a basket, you know, all prepared for cooking and things.

7:20And, I mean, I could get the rations for five people when I was six. I could easily go and carry the rations. which were so minimal for everybody. But I never remember Lucy being hungry or thinking, gosh, you know, I wish there was more of this. I don't remember that. You don't remember that. We were incredibly lucky. And your father didn't go away. He was away in the First World War? He was. He was a hero. He got the military cross and bar, he got. Do you know where he was? He was in Arras. and then because of a knee injury that he'd got, he was sent home to have... And that way, he was not at Passchendaele.

8:09It was just fantastically... Well, lucky is not really the word. And so for your father to have been in the war and then come home must have been a lot. I know. It was an extraordinary thing. and I knew about his war record but I didn't know it was quite so illustrious which it was. And do you think your parents wanted to be actors or to be singers or just part of their nature? No, my father, there was an amateur group in York called the Settlement Players. My pa and ma were part of that. Mummy never wanted to act but she was a wonderful seamstress and could make costumes and things like that.

8:56Then when it came to the York mystery plays, the miracle plays, when they were done for the first time, Daddy played Annas, the high priest. And we were, a lot of us were, auditioned by Martin Brown. I went to Quaker boarding school in York, and we were made angels, we were. We had a wonderful time, wonderful time. You remember the first audition? That would have been, at what age was your first audition? It wasn't really an audition. They just came and said, you, you, you, you and you. And when did you know that that's what you wanted to do? What I wanted to do? Oh, not for ages, Ruthie. Not until 53, because I wanted to be a designer, stage designer.

9:44Stage designer, yeah. But I was taken to Stratford by my parents and saw Michael Redgrave in Lear. and I can remember seeing this set which completely changed my idea. During the holidays at school, I'd assisted Wojtek, the designer at York Rep, painting sets for him. And I only really understood plays by three acts. You know, you design one act and then the curtain would come down, you'd change a few things and the curtain would go up. But for Lear at the Stratford, it was the most phenomenal set that never changed. It was a huge flat disc that revolved with a rock in the middle of it that was the throne or the cave.

10:36Nothing had to be changed. The whole play was kind of continuous. And I thought, no, goodbye York Art School. I'm going to try for Central. Yeah. When you went on these theatrical journeys with your parents, you went to Stratford, you went to the theatre in York, would you go to a restaurant before or after? Was that part of the evening? Was that part of the experience? It was partly, but probably we were always in a rush. Always in a rush to get things on time. But there was a restaurant that we used to, that used to be the most enormous street to go to outside York. And we used to cycle there.

11:22As a family. This would be post-war, this would be... That was post-war, yes. But we all had bikes. So that was the greatest treat. And was it a treat, yeah, to go to a restaurant? It was simply wonderful. Yeah. It was called the Baidu We. Okay. And what was the food like? Was it local food? It was wonderful. It was wonderful food. Do you remember any food you had there? I mean, not sophisticated in any way. Yeah. Not in any way. Yeah. And so... What are the dishes of your childhood that you remember? Did you have Yorkshire pudding? Yorkshire pudding we did have. Is that, yeah? I tell you something.

11:58Tell me. We used to have, at school, I used to try and stay away on a Tuesday because they used to do Yorkshire pudding with treacle. With treacle? Now, even now, that was really... So it was a dessert or they served the treacle Yorkshire pudding with beef? It's so disgusting. It was always on a Tuesday. Yeah. And I used to feign illness on a Tuesday until on about the third or fourth Tuesday, my ma said, this is something about school, she said. This is not to do with illness. And it was the Yorkshire pudding with a tree. That's a terrible thing to do. That was in the Quaker school, was it? That was at my prep school.

12:41But food was important to you. Food mattered, what you put in your mouth. It did matter because, of course, during the war, of course, it was just something to sustain you. And as I say, because of my power. visiting right around in the country we were just so lucky that we had enough to eat but so many people didn't know i i often think that when people are very critical of food in britain in the 50s or even the 60s britain had come out of a war they came out of rationing they came out of kitchen gardens where people didn't have food and to go from that to you know grand cuisine or to cooking, it seemed so unfair to criticise a nation that had suffered food-wise to being critical of, you know, the way they cooked, you know.

13:35So I feel it must have been very tough. Yes, it was just a question of giving you something that filled you, you know. Yeah. But also, I mean, I love the idea of your mother cooking a goose or cooking duck or cooking the food that was given to her from the farm. And we grew all our vegetables. Did you? We grew the vegetables and everything. In the garden. Yeah. And next door, there was the most wonderful pear tree. Ah. And my brother and I, Jeff, the younger of my two brothers, used to get a rake and rake the pears off the tree into the garden. Yeah. Nice. So it was quite a lot of pear eating.

14:13What would you do? Illegal pear eating. It was illegal, was it? Because it wasn't your tree. Oh, it wasn't your tree. Oh, okay. Their pears. Do you remember what your mother would cook with the pears? Would she stew them? Or would you have them? I think she would, yes, I think she would stew them, or we just ate them, you know. Yeah, delicious fruit pears, aren't they? Do you still like them? I like pears. I quite like pears. Quite, yeah. I picked a few in the garden, actually, recently. What's your garden like, Judy? Do you have a garden? I have a beautiful garden. What do you grow? Yes, I grow trees, mostly.

14:45Trees. I grow lots of different trees. But we have some apples, and one of them is a russet. Oh, I like russet. Which is very nice. And we have, as I say, these pear trees. We had a wonderful green gauge tree, but it came down in a storm. Yeah, green gauges. Very, very British green gauges.

15:14The River Cafe Cafe, our all-day space and just steps away from the restaurant, is now open. In the morning, an Italian breakfast with Cornetti, Ciambela, and Crostata from our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon, ice cream coupes and River Cafe classic desserts. We have sharing plates, salumi misti, mozzarella, bruschetta, red and yellow peppers, vitello, tonado, and more. Come in the evening for cocktails with our resident pianist in the bar. No need to book. See you here.

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17:50Visit washablesofas.com to upgrade your home. Right now, you can shop up to 60 % off store-wide with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Shop now at washablesofas.com. Add a little... to your life. Offers are subject to change, and certain restrictions may apply. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50%, and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. So doing the menus. Eliza had a blank sheet of paper. She came in the morning. It's better like your house.

18:32You go in the fridge. You see what's there. You see what's been ordered. You sort of also, you know, we're always thinking about what, I always think, what would I want to eat for lunch today? Oh, I'm so glad you're not coming to my house and meeting the bill of brick. And I bet you are. I was so excited to make this beautiful clam tagliarini, which I know Ruthie is one of Ruthie's favourite pastas, where we cook the vongole in advance with garlic and parsley stalks and chilli. And then we pick all the clams out of their shells and reduce the white wine and the olive oil and the butter. and then we toss that through fresh hand-cut taggarini, which is one of my favourite things that I've ever had at the River Cafe.

19:17Oh, my word. And we've also got this amazing slow-cooked pheasant and partridge sauce, which is a ragu that we make with lots of different wild birds at this time of year. And we put chestnuts and mince pancetta in. And that's really wonderful. Now we're really talking about food. Now we're going to have a good time. We do write our menu every day. It makes it special and exciting, which is what a restaurant should be and isn't very much. When you left this rather wonderful family of, you know, theatre and cooking geese and sitting around the table and singing songs and having friends over, it sounds so warm and so inclusive.

20:08What was it like when you actually then came to London, food-wise? Were you on a budget? Did you have to cook or eat out? What did you do for food? I've never had to cook or eat.

20:20I have to tell you a story. Okay. When I was awarded the OBE, and my agent at the time had been in Central with me, Julian Belfridge, he came down to lunch. and I gave him lamb cutlets. I made an enormous effort. He finished them, and whatever I gave him, I can't remember, for a dessert. And he sat back, and he said, well, I'll tell you something, Judy. He said, you didn't get the OBE for cooking.

20:55Nothing like having a supportive agent. No, but it's good to be told, isn't it? It's good to be told. That's so funny. There was a time. So what did you eat? There you are going to school. When we got to Central, oh, it was glorious. We used to go to somewhere in Kensington High Street. But we used to also go to a restaurant called the Cappanina in Soho. And that was the greatest treat. So that was Italian food? That was Italian food. It was absolutely wonderful. And it was affordable? You could go there on a student budget? Just about. Just about, yeah. But it was nice to be taken there, I must say.

21:40That was an enormous treat. Do you remember a kind of multicultural restaurant? Do you remember Indian? Because a lot of, you know, the cheapest food, certainly when I came in the 60s, was Greek, Indian, Chinese. I mean, that was a huge treat to be able to eat, you know, to eat Chinese and, as I would say, Italian. and it was a real luxury. Yeah. Suddenly to be able to go, to go will be taken to somewhere and have the luxury of really the choice of things to have to eat. I'll never take that for granted, I don't think. Were you ever hungry as a student? Were there days when you thought you were hungry?

22:22I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I don't ever remember that. You probably had a grant, did you, in the days when they... No, I didn't have a grant. Yeah. I lived in QA, Queen Alexandra's house, which is right by the Albert Hall where Central was. Oh, right. And so all that was... I don't know how my father... They feed you? Did they feed you? They did. Oh, they did? They did. Oh, that's good. Yeah. So we were lucky. Yeah. And so then you started getting roles at the National Theatre. Were you in Rep or the old Vic? At the Vic. I went straight to the Vic. Yeah. But, I mean, I've never been...

23:00I've never been a good cook, Ruthie. That's fine. Or even any cook of any kind. No. I have tried. I have tried. I can do two things. What are they? I can make white sauce and I can make gravy. Oh, well, that's pretty good, I'd say. That's all I can do. Yeah. Because I used to, at the Vic, Alec McCowan was at the Vic at the same time as me, and he used to live in the King's Road, about three minutes from my flat. We used to have Sunday lunch together, and he used to cook, and he used to always, I mean, it would be a very usual thing. We were in the importance together, and we knew each other frankly.

23:41But he used to send me a little note saying, would the gravy queen or the white sauce queen come on Sunday and have lunch? And he did all the rest. You were at the old fic. Who were the directors that you left? Oh, Michael Bentall. Yeah. Michael Bentall at the Vic, Dougie Seal, and, oh, it was halcyon days. I loved it. And I, despite having had not very good notices as Ophelia, which was my first part, I remember Michael Bentall said, he said, we'll just get over these notices, he said. You'll get better. And he said, I'll go on employing you, and you can play small parts and walk on, but you can stay at the Vic.

24:28And, you know, that was such... Well, he knew. I was so lucky. And then the National and then Nottingham Playhouse with Johnny Neville, who was Hamlet when I went to the Vic. And we took... We were the very first company to ever go to West Africa. Do you remember that very well? I remember it very well indeed. Their set plays were Twelfth Night, Macbeth, and arms and the man. What was the audience? Young children, young people at school. Was that the British Council who sent you there? Yes, it was the British Council. Yeah. And do you remember the culture of food there? I do. It's always like going back to the food.

25:11I do remember that. What was the food there? A kind of stew. Probably quite meat-based. Might well have been. Which actually is a question I also like to ask. When you act, when you're in a play, do you eat before? No. So tell me about you're in a play, you might be doing a matinee. Sometimes if you're lucky, you get to eat in the play. You get to eat in the world. I know you have a story about that. But if you might not be eating in the play, so here's a day. You're in a play in the West End or at the National or at the Old Vic and you wake up in the morning and you know you have a matinee and you have an evening performance.

25:50Judi Dench, what would your day be like in terms of food? I'd probably, I'd have coffee in the morning or tea. I wouldn't eat very much. I wouldn't eat much before. I'd eat just something before a matinee, not much, not lunch.

26:12And mostly eat afterwards. After the evening performance or after the matinee? After the evening performance. Yeah. Wow. That's a very... I like going to see a friend, friends I have who are in the theatre, and then going out, they always like to go out for dinner afterwards. Afterwards. And there's a sort of joyousness, isn't there, dinner afterwards? It is wonderful. Why? As long as you don't have a matter of the next day. You know, that's tricky. But, I mean, the luxury of doing two shows and knowing you're going out to dinner afterwards is just glorious. And then other nights you would just go home and crash?

26:48Or was there a kind of... You can go home and crash, probably. I always say that there are sort of links between the theatre of a restaurant and the theatre of the theatre, you know, that we have a kind of curtain up at a certain time and then there's the performance and then there's after the performance. And if I do an evening, I can sometimes do a night where the curtain goes up, i.e. somebody walks in and you're ready and you know it's going to be a great night or you just know sometimes even just by the way the first table sits down or the way perhaps one of the chefs is coming a bit late or they seem a bit tired that maybe it's not going to go so well.