Judi Dench ‘so lucky’ to join in National’s 50th birthday event

 
p16 Dame Judi Dench arrives at the 58th London Evening Standard Theatre Awards in association with Burberry at the Savoy in Central London PRESS ASSOCIATION Photo. Picture date: Sunday November 25, 2012. See PA story SHOWBIZ Theatre. Photo credit should read: Steve Parsons/PA Wire
1 November 2013

Dame Judi Dench says she feels “lucky” to be taking part in the National Theatre’s 50th birthday celebration this weekend.

The Oscar-winning actress, 78, also hoped the event would demonstrate the institution’s “huge range of work”.

A cavalcade of 120 stars, including Dames Maggie Smith and Helen Mirren, are performing a gala of extracts from important past productions at the theatre.

An invited audience of other National artists will see it live and the performance will be broadcast tomorrow night on BBC2 and in cinemas across the world. Dame Judi, right, said: “You’re lucky if you’re part of this. I’ve had glorious times here. It’s nice to come back and reprise them.”

She will sing Send In The Clowns and act out scenes from Antony and Cleopatra.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in

MORE ABOUT