In 1957, Michael Benthall, a director at the Old Vic, took a chance on a young woman straight out of drama school, casting her as Ophelia in a production of Hamlet starring John Neville and Coral Browne. I was lucky enough to be in the audience with my mother when Judi Dench, a velvet-voiced cherub in virginal white, made her début. An infinite variety of stage and film performances have gone by since then, but none has erased the memory of her stage presence that night.

Not all the critics approved of the performance. The role of Ophelia was taken off the newcomer for the tour to Paris and the United States, but restored to her on the company’s return. Benthall’s instinct proved right, of course. Dench went on to become part of the Old Vic company for four years before migrating to the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) at Stratford. Until the 1970s, Shakespeare provided the bread and butter for Dench and her husband, fellow RSC actor Michael Williams. They dubbed Shakespeare ‘the man who pays the rent’.