Dame Judi Dench is to front, Shakespeare, My Family and Me, in which the Oscar winning actor turns history detective to solve a great mystery in her family’s past. Did one of her ancestors actually meet her hero, William Shakespeare?
Made by Proper Job Films, the 1×60’ film for Channel 4 will see Dame Judi follow the clues buried deep in the Danish archives and find out if her eight times great-grandfather may have met Shakespeare in 1606, the year he wrote three of his greatest plays, plague returned to England and Londoners were reeling from the Gunpowder Plot.
Having played nearly every key female part in the Bard’s canon, Dame Judi will look back on the special place the words and worlds of Shakespeare have had throughout her luminous career on stage and screen.
Dame Judi Dench says: “It has been such an adventure to explore the possibility that an ancestor of mine might just have got within touching distance of my hero William Shakespeare. All the years I’ve spent playing Shakespeare and feeling a genuine, genuine passion for him and his work, to be on a journey where you might be stepping closer to him, it’s beyond my wildest dreams.”
Harvey Lilley, CEO of Proper Job Films says: “To be able to ask Judi if she remembers anything from a Shakespeare play she last performed in nearly 40 years ago and for her then, completely unrehearsed, to perfectly deliver a complete soliloquy illustrates for me what it was like to get to make this film. Unforgettable.”
Emily Shields, Commissioning Editor at Channel 4 says: “It’s been a real privilege to work with Dame Judi Dench and the team at Proper Job on this beautiful and very personal film exploring the ways Judi’s career and family history have intertwined with those of her literary hero. The result is an utter treat.”
Director of Photography is Richard Ranken, Editor is Oliver Baker, Executive Producer is Nina Davies, Producer and Director is Harvey Lilley and the Commissioning Editor is Emily Shields.
Jon Creamer
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