And Furthermore

January 24, 2011
In this warmhearted memoir, actress Dench brings such a fresh and natural reaction as she describes her roles from Mother Courage to Cleopatra, Lady Bracknell and Sally Bowles that a sense of identification occurs; Dench shows the theatrical inside plumbing of the player and how personal insights, emotional backstories, and initial responses create the character. She believes she is blessed with her marriage to actor Michael Williams and a supportive and understanding family, sharing stories about them as well as about actors Sir John Gielgud, Peggy Ashcroft, Daniel Day-Lewis, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Stephen Sondheim. Her tales of finding movie fame later in her career and her trips on the Oscar red carpet are heartfelt whether she's with Cate Blanchett or Vin Diesel. With candor and wit, Dench interweaves her stage presences with her love of playing pranks on fellow actors, on the stage of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and on Broadway. Considering the idea of retirement, she says, "you retire to do things that you really want to do. Well, I am doing things I want to do now." Photos.

December 15, 2010

Dench recalls her illustrious career in this rather flavorless memoir, tracking her storied performances in a staggering number of classical and contemporary stage works, TV series and films.

The author writes with a restraint that borders on the perverse, eschewing backstage gossip or personal introspection—or really much sentiment at all. She recounts a few mild pranks and standard actors' complaints about less-than-ideal performance conditions, but most of the narrative just tallies up professional accomplishments, charting Dench's relatively smooth ascension from respected repertory actress to Academy Award winner. With a few blandly complimentary phrases, she sums up co-stars such as Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig, declining to discuss the differing processes of mounting films, TV series and stage shows, or her impressions of the differing performance cultures of Hollywood, Broadway and the English theater. Her English TV series As Time Goes By enjoys a devoted cult in the United States, but she has almost nothing to say about it beyond registering bemusement at the Internet-driven mania of its fan base. Dench was married to actor Michael Williams for nearly three decades and had a daughter with him, but he's a vague, reassuring presence in the narrative whose death from cancer receives a rather cursory treatment here. The author's English reserve is admirable, but the brisk manner in which she recounts the presumably central tragedy of her life points up the book's ultimately off-putting coolness and perfunctory approach to autobiography. It's more of a list than a story, and indeed the book's most impressive section is a simple listing of Dench's acting credits, limning a truly awesome body of work. Bits of her personality do peek through, chiefly a surprising tetchiness (she is not a great fan of journalists) that might have made the book more enjoyable if given free rein.

Great actress, mediocre memoir.

(COPYRIGHT (2010) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

January 1, 2011

In her preface, celebrated stage and screen actress Dench declares that this book is not an autobiography, something she had neither the time nor the skill to write. Instead, it's meant as a companion to the biography and other works by John Miller (who gets an "as told to" credit here), with Dench's own reflections on her roles and her fellow actors. After quickly dispensing with her early years, Dench gets right down to her first role at the Old Vic--Ophelia, via unnerving on-again, off-again casting. Then she's on to the Royal Shakespeare Company, marriage to Michael Williams, experiences in film and television and on Broadway, receipt of an Oscar and an OBE, and more. It's all told in a dry, engaging voice, at once fierce and modest; Dench is forthright about her own slip-ups and the plays she loathes (including The Merchant of Venice). Clearly, Dench finds acting both all-absorbing and a real hoot; she and her colleagues cut up a lot. Young actors should attend to her comments on the value of theater training. VERDICT A delightful visit with a rare actress, definitely worth reading even for those acquainted with Miller's works.--Barbara Hoffert, Library Journal

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2011
Readers expecting or hoping that Dench would dish up a little dirt will be disappointed in this comfortably chatty memoir. Intended as an addendum or a follow-up to John Millers 1998 biography, Judi Dench: With a Crack in Her Voice, the famed Dame keeps her considerable wits and her British cool firmly tucked about her as she recalls her personal and professional life in breezy, all-too-brief detail. An icon of the British stage and an internationally renowned movie actress, Dench has participated in a breathtaking number of stage, television, and film productions, most of which she manages to touch on lightly. Though her laundry list of late and great colleagues and collaborators is staggering, she accords this vast congregation of coworkers a mere sentence or two each. Even stingier with her personal life, she glosses over her tremendously successful 30-year marriage to the late actor-director Michael Williams, allowing her practiced veneer to crack only slightly as she recalls his death from cancer. Doling out the morsels of her life sparingly, like all great entertainers, she leaves her audience wanting more.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)