If suddenly called on to recite Shakespeare from memory, how would you do?

Judi Dench was on Graham Norton last night to push her new book about her life and work with Shakespeare. After making the point we quote Shakespeare daily without knowing it, this happened: pic.twitter.com/CIhP39b4Bs

— Justin Sherin (@wychstreet) October 27, 2023

"No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged."

"Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a ‘fictionalized drama,’ the program makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.... Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series—that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence—this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent."

Said Judi Dench, quoted in "Dame Judi Dench Accuses The Crown of 'Crude Sensationalism'/The friend of Queen Consort Camilla and frequent royal portrayer says the Netflix series 'cannot go unchallenged'" (Vanity Fair).

Dame Judi Dench.

She has played the role of Elizabeth I once and Victoria twice — in movies that contained any amount of fictionalization — and she is personal friends with Queen Camilla — whose implication in the demise of Diana will come up in the new season of "The Crown."

Here are Judi and Camilla delighting themselves with the favorite dessert of oppressors and villains the world over:

 

Art — unlike ice cream — is not about making people comfortable.

All these complaints about "The Crown" are only reminding me that the new season is about to begin. Having recently watched every episode of "How to with John Wilson" and "Joe Pera Talks with You" twice (almost), I am ready to get back to this old favorite show.

"What could you say to have Judi Dench have your name stenciled on her ass?"

From a Maureen Dowd "Style" piece in the NYT last month called "Queen! Bow Down to Tattoo-Flashing Octogenarian Dame Dench":

Most memorably, she etched a message on her “bum” that said, “JD loves HW,” with a heart with an arrow through it, in gratitude to Harvey Weinstein for making her a movie star in “Mrs. Brown,” “Chocolat,” “Iris,” “Shakespeare in Love” and other films, after she had been starring in a sitcom with her husband in England.

As a young actress, she said, someone told her she would never make it in movies because “you have everything wrong with your face.”

“I’d like to know where that idiot is working now,” Mr. Weinstein tells me. “Probably for Breitbart.”

Ms. Dench pulled down her pants and flashed the tattoo at Mr. Weinstein at a celebrity lunch she arranged at the Four Seasons in 2002 with Mike Nichols, Nora Ephron, Carly Simon and others, and again at the BAFTA awards when Mr. Weinstein asked Ms. Dench to show his gift to a skeptical Oprah Winfrey at Royal Albert Hall.

“I walked in and I saw Harvey, and I said, ‘Hello, Harvey,’ and I dropped my pants down,” Ms. Dench recalls gleefully.

Ms. Winfrey, Mr. Weinstein recalls, “turned into a 12-year-old squealing girl” after Ms. Dench told her, “I hear you’ve been doubting my love for Harvey?” as she unzipped her pants.

Ugh. So much for queenliness and bowing down. How does the subordination of women happen? I dropped my pants, Dench recalled gleefully....

Since Weinstein mentioned Breitbart, I will link to "‘Your Silence Is Deafening’: Oscar-Winning Actresses Who Worked with Harvey Weinstein Stay Quiet on Sexual Harassment Claims" (at Breitbart):

While a number of female celebrities have spoken out since the allegations broke, including actresses Amber Tamblyn, Lena Dunham, and Brie Larson, several A-list stars who worked with Weinstein on Oscar-winning films have remained silent, including Nicole Kidman, Meryl Streep, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, Cate Blanchett, Anna Paquin, Renee Zelwegger, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Judi Dench, and Penelope Cruz.