KEN TYNAN once searched for a figure with whom to compare Sir Ralph Richardson, someone who shared his extraordinary combination of gravitas, wisdom, puckish humour and utter rolling-eyed barminess. He finally came up with God the Father, figuring that the supreme being must, after an eternity of omnipotence and 100-per-cent goodness, have developed some doddering eccentricities.No offence to Judi Dench, but I suspect she is turning into God the Mother. When the grieving families of the 80 British people who died in the World Trade Centre were planning the hymns and readings for the memorial tribute in Westminster Abbey in November, whom did they nominate as the perfect reader? You got it.
When Richard Eyre was casting about (literally) for an actress who could embody Iris Murdoch's combination of supreme intelligence and goodness, whom did he come up with? You're ahead of me.
And when Radio 4's Today programme needed someone to come and pontificate about the winner of its "Name Your Favourite Historical British Royal", who was the only human, bar the Queen herself, with sufficient regality to be called on? Precisely. And in her remarks, Dame Judi (who portrayed Elizabeth I and Victoria in films) progressed from sweetness, goodness, virtue etc into complete dottiness. Her favourite royal, she said, was Charles II, "because he opened all the theatres and got the country back on its feet after that awful Cromwell". Cromwell, she revealed, was a particular bete noire of hers because of his terrible depredations in Ireland - "you know," she said, "the Potato Famine". Nice sentiment, wrong century.
Then she told a hilarious story about her Cromwell-hating mum scribbling over the Protector's evil face on a family tea-cloth. Priceless. Can she not be elevated to royal status herself?
This article appeared in The Independent (UK) on January 1, 2002