- Director Judi Dench
In her directorial debut, in 1988, with the RTC's production of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, Judi Dench's cast, starring Kenneth Branagh and Samantha Bond, performed to sell-out audiences on a nationwide tour and for three months in the West End.
She took the director's chair a second time with the RTC in 1989 in a revival of John Osborne's landmark play Look Back In Anger. The play drew packed houses in London and Newcastle-upon-Tyne and although the reviews were mixed, Osborne himself confided that Branagh's performance as Jimmy Porter - playing opposite Emma Thompson's Alison Portere - was the finest interpretation of the role in many years.
In 1992, she returned to her favorite spot - in front of the foot lights - in the RTC's production of Shakespeare's Coriolanus at the Chichester Festival Theatre. Playing Volumnia, mother to Kenneth Branagh's Caius Martius Coriolanus, Judi Dench infused motherly pride in her son's military supremacy with uncompromising sincererity which was both sinister and disturbing. In Coriolanus, when Branagh roared "O, mother, mother! What have you done?" Dench, with profound horror, realised that in saving Rome she had sacrificed her son!
Judi's directorial talents did not only shine within the Renaissance Theatre Company -- this company that fully exploited the actor's imagination and energy -- but also at the Central School of Speech and Drama. In 1990, she returned to her alma mater to direct a student production of Shakespeare's Macbeth.
In July, 1991, Judi ventured into the Open Air Theatre - the OAT - in Regents Park, in London, to direct a musical: Rogers and Hart's The Boys From Syracuse, as well as Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in 1993. It was at this time, during the run of the musical, that she stated to the London Observer -- in her typically delightful fashion -- "I'm enjoying every minute [as director]. But I keep thinking it will be lovely to get back to the acting."
Thanks to Mike Kennedy for sending me this article and scan.