Dame Judi Dench has revealed that she once pushed a dead rat through her neighbour's letterbox during her youth. The 91-year-old actress shared the prank on the BBC's This Natural Life podcast, explaining it was motivated by her brothers' frustration over lost cricket balls.
The Prank and Its Motivation
According to Dame Judi, her brothers frequently played cricket in the garden and would hit balls over the fence into a neighbour's garden. The neighbour, a woman named Miss Lazenby, never returned the balls. "The boys used to play cricket in the garden, and they used to be always batting the balls over into the other gardens, and there was a lady called Miss Lazenby, and she never ever would throw the ball back, or give us the balls back," Dench recounted.
One day, the boys found a dead rat in the barn and decided to use it for revenge. They parcelled up the rodent and asked Judi to deliver it. "This is a terrible story, and once the boys found a dead rat in the barn, and they parcelled it up, and they said to me, 'Judi, will you just go round and put this through Miss Lazenby's door?'" she said.
The Delivery and Aftermath
Dame Judi complied, squeezing the dead rat through Miss Lazenby's letterbox. The rat had a note attached, reading: "Please give us our balls back." Miss Lazenby was "rather red about it," according to Dench. When asked if they ever recovered their cricket balls, Dench replied: "Probably not... I don't think we were allowed to play cricket again."
Dame Judi Dench's Illustrious Career
Dame Judi Dench has had a career spanning seven decades, earning numerous accolades including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, two Golden Globe Awards, four British Academy Television Awards, six British Academy Film Awards, and seven Olivier Awards. She made her professional stage debut in 1957 with the Old Vic Company and later performed with the National Theatre Company and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
She is also widely known for playing M in eight James Bond films, from GoldenEye (1995) to Spectre (2015), and for starring in television series such as A Fine Romance and As Time Goes By. Most recently, she voiced The Fridge in The Magic Faraway Tree.
