Latest news with #AntonyandCleopatra
The Herald Scotland
23-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Herald Scotland
How discovering deaf culture can be an enriching experience
Something very striking is how enriching hearing people find it when they start to discover deaf culture. That can be the distinctiveness of its humour, the perspectives of people who experience the world differently, or the vitality of British Sign Language (BSL). There's also immense creative talent in the deaf community, something that's all too often squandered through lack of opportunity. Too many highly skilled deaf people are still being overlooked. In the arts world, there are signs of change. Last year Shakespeare's Globe in London staged a production of Antony and Cleopatra in which the Romans spoke English and the Egyptians performed in BSL. I was cast as Cleopatra and was impressed by the commitment of the theatre and the response of the audience. The use of BSL and English-speaking actors was a positive – powerfully emphasising Roman incomprehension of another culture. We need to get away from the situation where deaf people are limited by other people's perceptions of what we can or can't do. Deaf creatives and creativity should be woven into the fabric of the arts. That's exactly what events like the Edinburgh Deaf Festival are helping to do. It provides platforms for deaf drama, comedy, drag, film, music, poetry and discussion. This caters for the deaf community and welcomes hearing audiences as well. It's about deaf people having agency; taking control of our narrative and expressing it how we want to. It's about ownership, pride, and representation from within the deaf community. The festival is also working with the [[Edinburgh]] Fringe, the International Festival, the Book Festival, [[Edinburgh]] Art Festival and specific venues like Summerhall, both to stage deaf-led events and to make their programmes more accessible to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. It's a relief to write about the things we are doing. Last year, the future of the festival was at risk. Despite the festival's development, growth and success it faced a severe funding crisis. A vigorous campaign was mounted to point out that the loss of the [[Edinburgh]] Deaf Festival would be completely at odds with the Scottish Government's commitment to making Scotland the best place in the world for BSL users to live, work, visit and learn. We now have a three-year funding deal with Creative Scotland that's allowing us to be more bold and ambitious for the future. It's something that Scotland should be proud of. Edinburgh, and the whole country, have played a vital role in the emergence of deaf culture and the establishment of deaf rights. This is exemplified by the fact that festival organisers, the Edinburgh-based Deaf Action, is the oldest deaf-led charity in the world and this year celebrates 190 years of campaigning for our community. The festival is a powerful way to improve the lives of deaf people and celebrate deaf culture, giving hearing people greater access to our world. • The festival is from August 8-17. Nadia Nadarajah is the Creative Programmer of the 2025 Edinburgh Deaf Festival Agenda is a column for outside contributors. Contact: agenda@
Scroll.in
21-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
‘The House of Awadh': The exile and echoes of Begum Wilayat Mahal, the queen of nowhere
'Give me my robe, put on my crown; I have Immortal longings in me...' — Cleopatra, Antony and Cleopatra (Act V, Scene II) In 1993, in a dilapidated hunting lodge tucked inside Delhi's Ridge Forest, Begum Wilayat Mahal 'swallowed crushed diamonds' and died. A tragic yet deliberate act of defiance, it eerily resonated with Cleopatra's penultimate moments in William Shakespeare's play, Antony and Cleopatra, where the Egyptian queen chooses to die by asp bites rather than be paraded on the streets of Rome by Caesar. Like Cleopatra, Wilayat refused to let a colonially divided, post-imperial world strip her of dignity and possibly the last remnants of royalty. However, this is where the similarity between them ends. Wilayat's story is not granted a regal ending – it is one of exile, bureaucratic suspicion, political apathy, and fractured memory. A life in transit In The House of Awadh: A Hidden Tragedy, authors and journalists Aletta André and Abhimanyu Kumar give a stirring, objective, yet sensitively written account of Wilayat Mahal's life and the generations of history she carried, contested, and reimagined, perhaps reconstructed too. Part oral history, part political inquiry, and part elegy, the book is divided into three segments – 'Memory', 'History', and 'Identity' – perfectly poised on an uneven terrain of remembrance. Anchored first in the dispassionate and professional rigor of historians and the tenderness and warmth of personal human experience later, André and Kumar unearth the checkered lives of Wilayat Mahal and her children – Sakina and Ali Raza – 'the self-proclaimed royals of Awadh (Oudh)' whose claims of descent from Wajid Ali Shah and Begum Hazrat Mahal were challenged, ridiculed, and dismissed by both the Indian and international press together with humanity at large. Wilayat Mahal, along with Sakina and Ali Raza, spent over a decade at railway stations – at the Charbagh station in Lucknow, then in the first-class waiting room of New Delhi Railway station – turning waiting rooms into stations of protest or defiance. These waiting rooms became surreal placeholders that screamed both royalty and rootlessness. Before moving to Delhi in the 1970s, Wilayat and her children had stayed for some time in Kashmir in the mid-1960s. Later in Lucknow, Wilayat claimed Chattar Manzil as her ancestral home and demanded restitution for the annexation of Awadh by the British. In a tussle between legitimate or illegitimate claims, personal and public memory, and fundamental rights to a decent life, the reader is drawn into a world where imperial legacies collide with post-colonial neglect, and memory becomes both weapon and wound. Doubly erased The House of Awadh situates Wilayat's story in the realm of the long afterlife of colonial disruption: the abolition of princely states, the dissolution of Privy Purses, the partition of families and identities across India and Pakistan. In this shuffle of geopolitics, personal histories are often erased or never documented – especially those of women who do not fit easily into officially sanctioned narratives. Wilayat Mahal emerges as a figure of protest: a Shia woman who refused state accommodations in Lucknow and instead demanded a return of her kingdom. The web of conflicts and confusions gets thicker. Wilayat's name was not included in the pensions list for the royals and their descendants, an omission both political and symbolic. This detail is crucial not because it debunks her claim, but because it adds texture to it – foregrounding the tangle of kinship, gender, and legitimacy in both pre-colonial and post-colonial India. In this context, it is important to understand Wilayat's social and religious identity. A Shia woman, who claimed direct descent from Hazrat Mahal, but whose actual ancestry, as the book details later, traced her lineage to a certain Zohra, a mu'tah (temporary) wife of Wajid Ali Shah (who had hundreds of wives), opens doors to further controversies. This connection, through the maternal line and via Shia traditions, was doubly removed and scorned in the eyes of the state. As a Shia, and a descendant of Zohra – also a grandchild of Wajid Ali Shah – Wilayat's link to royalty was not easy to accept or validate. Mut'ah marriages, temporary in nature and considered illegal by Sunni orthodoxy, were often dismissed as akin to prostitution. Hazrat Mahal herself had been one such wife (referred to as a concubine), making their roles in resistance even more subversive. The authors' commitment to following every clue – from Zohra's mut'ah lineage to Asafi Kothi in Sheesh Mahal – is exemplary. They excavate not only the ruins of palaces but also the layered wounds of inheritance, belonging, and trauma. Wilayat's story, the authors suggest, is not in the facts but in the 'cracks of memory'. From Lucknow to Kashmir, to Karachi, the authors traverse the complex geographies of a family and its fractured identity. Inayatullah, Wilayat's husband, once the Vice-Chancellor of Lucknow University, migrated to Karachi after Partition with four sons. Wilayat, reportedly the second wife, and her children were looked down upon – again, doubly marginalised for their gender and historical lineage. A trailing shadow Kumar and André's deep dive into the historical context of Awadh – its annexation, the legacy and significant role of Hazrat Mahal in the Revolt of 1857, the dissolution of the princely states, and the fallout of Partition – is as thorough as it is moving. What they achieve is not just a biographical excavation, but a rebalancing of how we perceive madness, protest, and feminine agency in post-colonial India. Wilayat's life, as the authors show, uncannily mirrored that of Hazrat Mahal – not just in resistance but in its tragic arc. Hazrat Mahal, a formidable leader of the 1857 Revolt, had led armies against the British and sent delegations to London to protest the annexation of Awadh by the East India Company. Her mission failed. She died in exile in Kathmandu, and her dreams remained unfulfilled. Wilayat's lifelong protest against the same historical wrong also ended in futility – her claims never fully acknowledged, her requests never quite granted, her memory left to rot along with the ruins of Malcha Mahal. Her fight was less about restoration and more about recognition. This is where the book's most powerful and poignant subtext lies: how women's memories, oral histories, and lived experiences are routinely invalidated only because they don't complement or validate official records. Wilayat's insistence that her family was wronged may never have been fully provable, but it was not a figment of imagination either. There was truth, however fragmentary, in what she claimed. And that truth, this book argues, deserves its place in our historical imagination. The authors let Wilayat's contradictions to breathe: a woman fiercely protective of her identity, who once broke the locks at Sheesh Mahal to reclaim what she said was hers; a woman of noble defiance and psychological fragility, who planted a neem tree at Malcha Mahal as a marker of rootedness in a land that refused to see her as one of their own. The book neither confirms nor denies her royal claim; instead, it interrogates the very frameworks – bureaucratic, journalistic, and colonial – that attempted to define her. Was she a fraud, a revolutionary, or a symbol of post-colonial displacement? The book refuses any definite resolution, and in doing so, offers something far more valuable: nuance. Malcha Mahal – a site of madness and memory In 1985, the family was granted residence in Malcha Mahal – a 14th-century Tughlaq-era hunting lodge. The palace had no electricity, no water, no guards. Home to bats, snakes, Wilayat's pedigreed dogs, fine china dinnerware, and an air thick with grief, it was a place of haunting decay. By the time the family moved into Malcha Mahal, they had already endured decades of homelessness and societal derision. Wilayat died there. So did her daughter, Sakina. And in 2017, Prince Ali Raza – also known to some as Cyrus – died alone in its decrepit halls – his demise marking the ultimate end of the family line. During their time at the New Delhi Railway Station and Malcha Mahal, the family was harassed by local boys and goons, highlighting the vulnerability of their situation. The neglect was not just administrative but societal. Michel Foucault's Madness and Civilisation (1961) finds an echo here and, in the book too, in how melancholy and grief were used as tools to discredit and isolate. Wilayat's narrative was alternately romanticised and dehumanised – hailed as a mysterious, melancholic royal one day, dismissed as a delusional imposter the next. The foreign press dubbed her a ' fake queen,' 'mentally ill,' 'fraud' – a treatment reminiscent of Bertha Mason, the so-called madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre (1847), whose dissent is pathologised. And like Bertha, Wilayat was often locked away – first metaphorically, by a public that found her claims inconvenient, and later literally, through brief arrests and state confinement. The Indian state too oscillated between dismissiveness and discomfort, rarely addressing the deeper roots of her demands. The haunting decrepitude of Malcha Mahal is captured in fine detail. The accounts of Mohammad Kasim, a servant who stayed with the family, and of Asad, the eldest son who is almost absent, who helped Wilayat procure a cobra to keep the local goons at bay, add pathos and peculiarity to an already haunting tale. The imagery is unsettling but deeply humanising: a mother consumed by loss, a son retreating into silence, a daughter bearing the burden of an impossible past. The House of Awadh is cautious not to view Malcha Mahal as a mere curiosity or a trivial spectacle for cheap thrills. The authors approach the site and its stories with empathy and historical awareness. Though in 2023, voyeurism took precedence as Malcha Mahal turned into a 'haunted walk' site for tourists. What emerges is less a ghost story and more an indictment – of how bureaucracies treat those who fall outside easy classifications, and how a family was relegated to the margins of a place that could have been home. Kumar and André deserve praise for the breadth and sensitivity of their research. The book is, after all, not just about who Wilayat Mahal was, but what she came to represent: the disquieting gap between historical injustice and institutional response. There is sentiment here, yes – but never sentimentality. The narrative walks the tightrope between respect and realism. Wilayat is not romanticised in the text; her acts are not portrayed as noble sacrifice but as deliberate, often desperate, choices made in a world that denied her a place and voice. The House of Awadh is not just a biography of a forgotten woman or her eccentric children. It reads like a homage to all those – especially women – whose truths don't align with bureaucracy and whose griefs are too complicated for the news cycle. Wilayat Mahal may not have been Hazrat Mahal's direct descendant, but she was, unmistakably, her ideological heir. Her death, like her life, was a continuous protest. Wilayat had planted a neem tree outside Malcha Mahal, perhaps to remind herself that something could take root even in barren isolation. Wilayat Mahal, in refusing to fade quietly, in demanding what she believed was rightfully hers, embodied a fierce tenacity. Not a fake queen, but a formidable woman.
The Hindu
19-06-2025
- Politics
- The Hindu
Blame not the messenger in India's diplomacy
History and literature are replete with references to not 'shooting the messenger' for bringing bad news. In Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra, the Egyptian queen assaults a messenger and threatens to have him 'whipped with wire and stewed in brine, smarting in ling'ring pickle', for bringing her the news that the Roman General Mark Antony has married another. 'I that do bring the news made not the match,' the messenger replies, before making a hasty exit. Over the past two months, India's 'diplomatic messengers' too have faced an ire that is unprecedented — criticised not for the message they bring, but for failing to convey effectively enough, the message New Delhi has sent out after Operation Sindoor (May 7-10, 2025). Criticism of Indian diplomacy Public commentary that is critical of the Ministry of External Affairs and its missions has focused broadly on three counts. First, that India received condolences and statements condemning the Pahalgam terror attack from all quarters, but not the kind of unequivocal support, especially from the neighbourhood, for retaliatory strikes on Pakistan, of the kind seen in 2016 (post-Uri) and 2019 (post-Pulwama). In 2016, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and the Maldives backed India's decision to stay away from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation summit in Pakistan after the Uri attack. In 2019, global solidarity with India forced even China to back a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) terror designation for Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar. Earlier, in 2008, there was international consensus in India's favour after the Mumbai attacks, when Hafiz Saeed and a number of Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorists were designated by the UNSC, and Pakistan was put on the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list for the first time. Instead, this time, unfavourable comparisons have been made to Pakistan for the lines of support it received from China, Turkiye, Azerbaijan, Malaysia and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC). Second, the perception is that Pakistan has scored some diplomatic wins, despite widespread global understanding that Pakistan uses terrorists as state proxies. In April, Pakistan, a non-permanent member of the UNSC, managed to amend the resolution on Pahalgam to delete any reference to The Resistance Front (TRF), that claimed responsibility for the heinous attack. Earlier this month, Pakistan was chosen as chair of the Taliban Sanctions Committee and vice-Chair of the Counter-Terrorism Committee at the UNSC, and secured loans from the International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank despite New Delhi's opposition. Next was the White House's lunch invitation to Pakistan Army chief (now Field Marshal) General Asim Munir, despite the belief in India that his 'jugular vein' speech was a virtual green signal for the Pahalgam attack. In July, as Security Council President for the month, Pakistan will try to schedule meetings on the India-Pakistan conflict and Kashmir, even as India accelerates efforts to designate the TRF at the UNSC, and place Pakistan on the FATF greylist. India's diplomats will be tested again. The third aspect pertains to United States President Donald Trump, who, despite official denials from India, has chosen to muddy the narrative of how the May 10 ceasefire was achieved, hyphenating India and Pakistan in more than a dozen public statements, and offering to mediate on Kashmir. His latest iteration of the comments this week, just hours after a telephone conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and just before his meeting with Gen. Munir, was possibly the most blatant. Thus far, Mr. Trump's statements, post-ceasefire, have not had a single word on the scourge of terrorism itself, showing just far apart the understanding between Delhi and Washington is at this time. A flurry of diplomacy does not seem to have moved the needle on these criticisms. After Operation Sindoor, special delegations of Members of Parliament and former diplomats travelled to 32 countries. The most time (six days) was spent in the United States. After the G-7 meet, Mr. Modi has meetings ahead with BRICS leaders. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar is visiting the U.S. for the Quad Foreign Ministers Meeting soon, after several visits to European capitals recently. The government had not essayed such a campaign after the 2016 or 2019 actions against Pakistan, indicating that it too feels that diplomatic efforts by the Ministry of External Affairs and missions abroad have been found wanting and need bolstering. But much as the messenger in Shakespeare says, India's diplomats do not decide the message that India wishes to send after Operation Sindoor, and cannot be held responsible for its resonance. It is necessary for the government to study the contents of that message, the shift in geopolitical narratives and in how India is perceived, in order to build a more realistic assessment of how far international diplomacy can ensure the outcomes New Delhi desires vis-à-vis Pakistan. The 'new normal' With reference to the content of the message, Mr. Modi's three-pronged 'New Normal' has raised eyebrows in some capitals. The first prong — 'Any act of terror is an act of war' — lowers the threshold for future conflicts, passing the trigger for Indian strikes into the hands of any terrorist, acting on orders on their own. The second — 'India will not bow to nuclear blackmail' — is not necessarily new, but has been left unarticulated thus far because it gives the appearance of a heightened nuclear risk for the region. The third — India will not distinguish between state and non-state actors henceforth — sends out an escalatory message, indicating that the next terror attack could well invoke 'Armageddon', rather than the controlled four day conflict in Operation Sindoor. While India's partners have not asked for evidence of Pakistan's links to Pahalgam, they look askance at other aspects — like why India has been unable to trace the terrorists responsible yet. Next, it is necessary to note that global shocks in the past few years have changed how the world views India's tough messaging. Take for example, a growing number of statements by Indian Ministers about 'taking back Pakistan occupied Kashmir' by force if necessary. These make many of India's interlocutors uncomfortable, given the current number of conflicts over territorial aggression underway, from West Asia, to Ukraine to the South China Sea. In the light of Israel's retaliation for the October 7, 2023 terror attacks, few wish to give any state a free hand for 'retribution'. New Delhi's refusal to criticise Russia for its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and to raise its oil imports from Russia in the face of sanctions, lost it some support in the western world, especially Europe. The Modi government's silence on Israel's devastation of Gaza has also been met with disappointment in the Global South. India, as Mr. Modi told Mr. Trump this week, views terrorism emanating from Pakistan, 'not as a proxy war, but as a war itself'. India's diplomats have been left explaining why their stock responses that 'this is not an era of war' and that 'dialogue and diplomacy' are the only way forward do not apply to India and Pakistan. Thus, it may be necessary for New Delhi to rethink how it frames its message in view of these changes, notwithstanding the global double standards inherent in the expectations from India. Democracy in decline Finally, there is need for introspection over how the Modi government's image itself has altered in the world since 2019, leading to diplomatic challenges on a number of fronts. These range from concerns abroad over laws such as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, the amendment of Article 370, Internet bans and summary arrests in different parts of the country, and accusations against Indian government agents of involvement in transnational killings in the U.S. and Canada. Questions over the broader decline in democracy and the status of minorities within India have also increased in the past few years. India's delegations abroad (Operation Sindoor) had to field some of those questions during their travels. India's right to defend itself from decades of Pakistan-backed, trained and funded terrorists is unassailable. But carrying a tough message on terror is easier for the diplomats tasked with the role, if in a strife-roiled world, the government plays to India's advantages, and what differentiates it from Pakistan — as a secular, stable, pluralistic, rule-abiding democratic and economic power. suhasini.h@
Time Out
04-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
A haunting new adaptation of 'The Birds' lands at Melbourne's Malthouse Theatre
It's been more than 70 years since Daphne du Maurier wrote The Birds, the gothic short story that famously inspired Alfred Hitchcock's 1963 film of the same name. Decades later, it remains one of the most unsettling tales ever told. Now, Malthouse Theatre is bringing this classic thriller to the stage in a bold new form: a reimagined one-woman show starring Paula Arundell (Three Furies, Antony and Cleopatra, Henry V). Adapted by Louise Fox and directed by former Malthouse artistic director Matthew Lutton (Picnic at Hanging Rock), the new production blends psychological horror with cutting-edge audio technology to create a truly immersive experience. As the theatre darkens and you don a pair of headphones, prepare for your pulse to race. The stunning sound design by J. David Franzke uses binaural sound – a 360-degree audio technique – to drag you into the haunting tale where a coastal town is under supernatural siege from a flock of birds. Arundell performs with tiny microphones in her ears, capturing every whisper, gasp, flap, screech and swoop as though it is terrifyingly close.
The Advertiser
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Advertiser
Dame Judi Dench forever grateful for her acting career
Dame Judi Dench is eternally grateful for her acting career. The 90-year-old actress has been a fixture on both screen and stage since the 1950s but still feels fortunate to be in a profession that she loves. Dame Judi told My Weekly magazine: "I feel very lucky to be part of the two per cent of people who wanted to do something and were able to make a living at it. "I never cease to be grateful of the fact that I am able to do a job that I really love – I never got over that. ... the key to happiness is gratitude." Her ability to work has been limited by the macular degeneration that has badly affected her eyesight, although she remains "in love with life". The former James Bond actress said: "Be thankful for what you have, and you'll find abundance in every aspect of your life. I'm in love with life even though it is a beautiful mess – but that's what makes it so incredible." Dame Judi is widely seen as a national treasure in Britain but she jokingly sees the title in another way. She said: "It's dusty and dreary. It's like I've been picked up and put inside a little glass-fronted cabinet. Then they've locked the door so I can't get out." Dame Judi revealed earlier in 2025 that she lost her voice for two days after being scared by a close encounter with a snake when she starred in a 1987 production of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. The Oscar-winner, who was playing the female lead in the play, told the BBC Radio 4 documentary 'Roleplay': "One night, the boys taking me [carrying me] kept hissing. I was wondering what on earth was going on. "Then, back on stage at the very end of the play, the snake fell out of my wig as I did my bow. I was so scared I lost my voice for two days." Dame Judi Dench is eternally grateful for her acting career. The 90-year-old actress has been a fixture on both screen and stage since the 1950s but still feels fortunate to be in a profession that she loves. Dame Judi told My Weekly magazine: "I feel very lucky to be part of the two per cent of people who wanted to do something and were able to make a living at it. "I never cease to be grateful of the fact that I am able to do a job that I really love – I never got over that. ... the key to happiness is gratitude." Her ability to work has been limited by the macular degeneration that has badly affected her eyesight, although she remains "in love with life". The former James Bond actress said: "Be thankful for what you have, and you'll find abundance in every aspect of your life. I'm in love with life even though it is a beautiful mess – but that's what makes it so incredible." Dame Judi is widely seen as a national treasure in Britain but she jokingly sees the title in another way. She said: "It's dusty and dreary. It's like I've been picked up and put inside a little glass-fronted cabinet. Then they've locked the door so I can't get out." Dame Judi revealed earlier in 2025 that she lost her voice for two days after being scared by a close encounter with a snake when she starred in a 1987 production of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. The Oscar-winner, who was playing the female lead in the play, told the BBC Radio 4 documentary 'Roleplay': "One night, the boys taking me [carrying me] kept hissing. I was wondering what on earth was going on. "Then, back on stage at the very end of the play, the snake fell out of my wig as I did my bow. I was so scared I lost my voice for two days." Dame Judi Dench is eternally grateful for her acting career. The 90-year-old actress has been a fixture on both screen and stage since the 1950s but still feels fortunate to be in a profession that she loves. Dame Judi told My Weekly magazine: "I feel very lucky to be part of the two per cent of people who wanted to do something and were able to make a living at it. "I never cease to be grateful of the fact that I am able to do a job that I really love – I never got over that. ... the key to happiness is gratitude." Her ability to work has been limited by the macular degeneration that has badly affected her eyesight, although she remains "in love with life". The former James Bond actress said: "Be thankful for what you have, and you'll find abundance in every aspect of your life. I'm in love with life even though it is a beautiful mess – but that's what makes it so incredible." Dame Judi is widely seen as a national treasure in Britain but she jokingly sees the title in another way. She said: "It's dusty and dreary. It's like I've been picked up and put inside a little glass-fronted cabinet. Then they've locked the door so I can't get out." Dame Judi revealed earlier in 2025 that she lost her voice for two days after being scared by a close encounter with a snake when she starred in a 1987 production of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. The Oscar-winner, who was playing the female lead in the play, told the BBC Radio 4 documentary 'Roleplay': "One night, the boys taking me [carrying me] kept hissing. I was wondering what on earth was going on. "Then, back on stage at the very end of the play, the snake fell out of my wig as I did my bow. I was so scared I lost my voice for two days." Dame Judi Dench is eternally grateful for her acting career. The 90-year-old actress has been a fixture on both screen and stage since the 1950s but still feels fortunate to be in a profession that she loves. Dame Judi told My Weekly magazine: "I feel very lucky to be part of the two per cent of people who wanted to do something and were able to make a living at it. "I never cease to be grateful of the fact that I am able to do a job that I really love – I never got over that. ... the key to happiness is gratitude." Her ability to work has been limited by the macular degeneration that has badly affected her eyesight, although she remains "in love with life". The former James Bond actress said: "Be thankful for what you have, and you'll find abundance in every aspect of your life. I'm in love with life even though it is a beautiful mess – but that's what makes it so incredible." Dame Judi is widely seen as a national treasure in Britain but she jokingly sees the title in another way. She said: "It's dusty and dreary. It's like I've been picked up and put inside a little glass-fronted cabinet. Then they've locked the door so I can't get out." Dame Judi revealed earlier in 2025 that she lost her voice for two days after being scared by a close encounter with a snake when she starred in a 1987 production of Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. The Oscar-winner, who was playing the female lead in the play, told the BBC Radio 4 documentary 'Roleplay': "One night, the boys taking me [carrying me] kept hissing. I was wondering what on earth was going on. "Then, back on stage at the very end of the play, the snake fell out of my wig as I did my bow. I was so scared I lost my voice for two days."
