a good idea to create more than you consume’.
There’s also a boyish mischievousness about him. When I ask for his best piece of advice, he feigns ignorance and says he’s never been able to think of anything clever to say his whole life, and then winks. When I push a second time for his most valuable advice, he continues in the vein of what he has been saying about appreciating the miracle of what life on earth has to offer, and it fits exactly with the endless fascination he exhibits in every second of his films:
‘I have never met a child that is not fascinated by our natural world, the animal kingdom and the wonders within it. It is only as we get older that we sometimes lose that sense of wonderment. But I think we would all be better off if we kept it. So my advice is to never lose that, do what you can to always keep that sense of magic with our natural world alive.’
And no one does that better than Sir David.
‘I HAVE NEVER MET A CHILD THAT IS NOT FASCINATED BY OUR NATURAL WORLD, THE ANIMAL KINGDOM AND THE WONDERS WITHIN IT. IT IS ONLY AS WE GET OLDER THAT WE SOMETIMES LOSE THAT SENSE OF WONDERMENT. BUT I THINK WE WOULD ALL BE BETTER OFF IF WE KEPT IT. SO MY ADVICE IS TO NEVER LOSE THAT, DO WHAT YOU CAN TO ALWAYS KEEP THAT SENSE OF MAGIC WITH OUR NATURAL WORLD ALIVE.’
– Sir David Attenborough
GETTING STOCIOUS WITH DAME JUDI DENCH
I’VE NEVER FELT WORSE ON a beautiful summer’s morning. It’s Friday, 24 June 2016, and the UK has just voted to come out of the EU. I stayed up all night watching the results with the campaign team I’ve been part of for the last six months, realising with a deepening sense of unease that the country has chosen to burn bridges and build walls instead.
Such thoughts are my mental backdrop as I drive to visit Dame Judi Dench at her home in deepest, greenest Surrey. On the way, I pass a multitude of red ‘Vote Leave’ posters, reminding me that at least half the people in the country will be waking up happy this morning. Dame Judi Dench is not one of them.
I find her in her garden. She’s dressed in white clothes and sunlight, sat by an old friend of a table in the middle of her lawn, safeguarded by reassuringly seasoned trees and the crumbly walls of her gorgeous house. She asks how I am. I bypass forty-three years of ingrained Britishness and reply honestly, explaining that I’m unbelievably depressed by what’s happened. ‘Me too,’ she replies. ‘There’s nothing else for it, I’m going to get stocious.’
‘Stocious?’ I ask, confused by the unfamiliar but respectable-sounding term. ‘Yes, stocious. It’s an old Irish word. My mother was from Dublin. It means being drunk, but even more so.’ I guess I was wrong about the respectable part.
We’ve not met before this encounter, but a shared sense of grief bonds us. We huddle together at the table, taking it in turns to bemoan the loss of identity and tolerance we feel the outcome represents. We’re as bad as each other, and wallow communally for a while before pulling ourselves back up into the light.
I end up spending three hours with Dame Judi. She is everything you would imagine her to be: thoughtful, candid, warm, funny, kind, the spirit of solace manifested as a person. Over the course of our conversation we graduate from sipping iced coffee to drinking champagne, but I leave neither stocious nor, thanks to Dame Judi, feeling the need any more to be so.
I do, however, leave intoxicated from the delicious cocktail of advice, anecdotes and affirmation she serves up. My favourite story is of the time eight years ago when she received a bad review from the theatre critic Charles Spencer. ‘He didn’t just criticise my performance, he also listed other things he thought I’d not done well. And that irritated me. So one night I woke up and thought, I’m going to write to him and get it off my chest. So I did. I wrote, “Dear Charles Spencer, I used to quite admire you, I now think you are a total shit,” and sent it off.’
Like all good stories, there’s a second half. Earlier this year, Dame Judi was at the Critics’ Circle Awards. ‘I felt a tap on my shoulder and a man said, “My name is Charles Spencer, I crave your forgiveness,” and I said, “Then you may kiss my boot.” And he did, he got down on the floor and kissed my boot. He then got up and exclaimed, “I’m so relieved.” But I said, “I haven’t said I forgive you,” and I walked away.’ Pause for dramatic effect. ‘I wrote to him the next day and said, of course, “I forgive you.” But it was very rectifying.’
Funnily enough, she never intended to be the subject of acting reviews. Her plan was to be a theatre designer and that’s what she studied, ‘but my older brother always wanted to be an actor and I caught it off him like measles’. And it was her other brother who introduced her to Shakespeare. ‘I was six years old and went to see him play Duncan in Macbeth, and he came on and said, “What bloody man is that?” And I thought this is it, he’s sworn and he’s allowed to stand up there and say it, so after that I used to say “What bloody man is that?” all the time, knowing I could get away with it.’
Her talk of Shakespeare leads to something remarkable happening, for me at least. Dame Judi puts her head back and launches into a heart-stopping recital of the Bard: ‘For once upon a raw and gusty day, the troubled Tiber chafing with her shores, Caesar said to me, “Darest thou, Cassius, now, leap with me into this …”’ She is momentarily transported to the shores of the Tiber, and she’s taken me with her. It occurs to me, I’m getting a private one-on-one performance of Shakespeare by Judi Dench while drinking her champagne. In your dreams, Charles Spencer.
She advises me on the importance of having passions.
She surprises me, though, by saying that the nerves are greater now than back then. ‘The more you know, the more unsure you get. At first you don’t know the pitfalls. But if I didn’t have nerves I’d be worried, as they engender energy, they’re petrol.’
She says a theatre performance still leaves her feeling raw and exposed. ‘I am like that frog you’d see in biology class at school, split down the middle and pinned out, ready to be dissected. I just want someone to come in and give me a hug and be positive, but people knock on the door and come in and say things like, “We had the most terrible journey down from Gloucester.”’
It is a small example of her bigger point, that life is better if you stay positive.
‘If I was passing on anything, I would say, for goodness sake, look for the pluses in life. Being negative completely erodes everything. If something bad happens, I always say cancel and continue and get back on track. There’s no good being negative, I don’t believe in negativity.’
Then one beat later.
‘Except in regard to the referendum.’
I’ll drink to that.
‘LOOK FOR THE PLUSES IN LIFE. BEING NEGATIVE COMPLETELY ERODES EVERYTHING. IF SOMETHING BAD HAPPENS, I ALWAYS SAY CANCEL AND CONTINUE AND GET BACK ON TRACK.’
–
