Judi Age is just a number and some days I choose to be 20!

At 88, actor and global treasure Dame Judi Dench is as sharp as a tack and full of naughty fun. In an exclusive interview she talks about her lucky life, the essential joy of friends and family and the thrill of new projects, like her topical new film, Allelujab.

- JAMES MOTTAM

Wrapped up in a cosy woollen scarf, Dame Judi Dench reclines in a spotless cream armchair. Silver-haired, blue eyes sparkling, she looks like she’s about to read me a story, not talk to me over Zoom about her latest film, Allelujah. I feel like saying, “Are you sitting comfortably? Then we’ll begin”, like that classic British show, Jackanory, when famous people read out fairytales to the nation’s children. Dame Judi has, of course, been on it – just one of the many things that’s helped her to become a bona fide global treasure.

She’s speaking from her home in Outwood, Surrey, where she’s lived for the past two decades. Outside the window is her pride and joy, her garden. “I’m absolutely mad about trees, mad about them,” she confides. “All my friends who are no longer with us, they’ve got trees in the garden. I plant them, and there’s a little sign on them.” It’s a way of remembrance, and a marker for her friends who have lost someone.

“It’s lovely for me, but I think it can be a comfort for somebody, perhaps.”

She’s 88 years old now, with a needle-sharp wit still very much intact. In person, she speaks in sweet, sing-song tones. But you only have to look at her on screen to see just how chilly she can be, making the blood run cold. Think of her squaring up to Daniel Craig in the recent James Bond films, in which she played 007’s MI6 boss, M. Or, further back, her powerful portrait of Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare In Love, the film that won her an Oscar for just eight minutes of screen time.