"This was never meant to be a book", writes actor and director Brendan O'Hea in the introduction to Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent. It turns out that that very quirk is why this book is one of the most informative and delightful texts on William Shakespeare you’re likely to come across.
Originally carried out as recorded deep dives into Shakespeare’s works and the roles Judi Dench has played over her almost 70-year career, to be added to the Globe Theatre archive, these conversations between two friends flit between discussions about Lady Macbeth’s intentions and staging choices, to reflections on the idea of "play" and bawdy memories of Dench’s time treading the boards.
What results is a bewitching, enlightening and delightfully human examination of one of literature’s most elusive characters, told from the perspective of a similarly roguish and beguiling industry great.
If memories of your Leaving Cert English Paper II exam has made reading Shakespeare feel more poisonous than Hamlet’s "cursed hebenon", Dench’s warm and humorous recollections may well be the antidote. Told with a strict avoidance of "intellectualising" the material, as well as her approach to it, Dench also paints a crystal-clear portrait of life as a theatre actor in the last 60 years, bringing both context and modern-day reflections to the 500-year-old texts.
We’re straight into the meaty stuff, examining her monumental turn as Lady Macbeth. Dench’s ability to recite seemingly every line of every Shakespeare play she performed in is first glimpsed here, as well as her deep empathy for many of the characters (though, crucially, not all).
Watch: Judi Dench talks Shakespeare on The Graham Norton Show
Speaking about embodying the conniving Lady, she makes her case for her as less of a scornful virago and more an abandoned wife, imagining her turmoil at watching the husband she would do anything for - lie for, invoke evil spirits for - turn from her. "She’s so bloody lonely", she says at one point.
In her first scene as Lady Macbeth, Dench’s focus is on capturing "the couple’s passion for each other". It’s clear that her aim is to pull the humanity through not just the constraints of Early Modern English, but through time itself: at the end of the day, Macbeth and his Lady were a couple in love, until he left her.
Her approach, she insists, is highly instinctive – albeit with plenty of off-stage "homework" thinking about the characters. This might be why it’s also deeply feminine. She considers the inner life and experiences of not just her characters, but the other ones, crafting delicately balanced perspectives that pull from all the corners of humanity.
Considering Hamlet’s humiliation of Ophelia in front of his mother, she thinks, "how does a mother deal with that? Or a woman, or a wife?" When considering Gertrude, Hamlet’s mother, she burrows down into the woman’s joy at having an affair, rather than her grief for her dead husband, relishing in the frivolity.
When playing Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, she finds a way of expressing just how besotted the Fairy Queen is with Bottom (who has been turned into a donkey) in how she mimics the hee-haws: "I was trying to understand his language."
There are also many instructive moments for aspiring actors, poets and creatives. Dench’s thoughts on acting are staunchly egalitarian and refreshingly devoid of ego. Speaking about prepping for Hamlet, she says: "We certainly didn’t sit around and intellectualise it all. Unless the audience is going to have a share of that, I think that’s just an indulgence. You must do your own homework and get on with it."
Her sense of humour delights throughout the book, from turning a laughing fit at Ian McKellan fudging a line into a fit of hysteria, to accidentally saying "erection" instead of "election" during a scene with her actor husband, Michael Williams. It reminds the reader that Shakespeare’s work is itself full of giddiness, frivolity, raunchiness and play, and a truly living thing when in the hands of a master like Dench.
It makes it all the more impactful when we come to a play she despises: "The Merchant of f****** Venice." Grappling with notions of race, greed and deceit, not to mention the anti-Semitism directed at Shylock, it still leaves a nasty taste in Dench’s mouth: "I always felt I needed a good shower after it."
Peppered throughout this book are anecdotes about mucking about in dressing rooms, a young Daniel Day Lewis suffering a breakdown on stage during his run as Hamlet and "electrifying love affairs that start in the dark, innocuously". It’s a rich text for fans of Shakespeare, theatre and a good, bawdy joke.
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays The Rent is published by by Michael Joseph
