Dame Judi Loves Us And Wants Us To Be Happy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2009/sep/13/judi-dench-shakespeare-theatre

Dame Judi Dench, who made movie trivia history by playing Queen Elizabeth in two movies simultaneously (and winning an Oscar for one of them though I can’t remember which), was given the theatre set from Shakespeare in Love as a gift.  What to do with such a thing?

Why, donate it to a trust that’s going to set it up as a permanent structure, of course.

Dench wants to see the set turned into a full-scale replica of the Rose theatre, which stood close to the Globe on the south bank of the Thames and was also used by Shakespeare. The actor, who was born in York, has donated the set to the touring British Shakespeare Company for re-use as a permanent Shakespeare centre in the north of England.

Dench said her husband, the actor Michael Williams, had called her mad to accept the present, but she had been determined to see the open-air apron stage, with its horseshoe of galleries and open space for cheap ticket "groundlings", used as a working theatre. Structural reinforcement will be needed, but the building parts are basically sound and it held up to heavy, sometimes rowdy, use during the making of the film.

I may never get a chance to see such things, but I’m glad there are people in the world who want to make such things happen.