Class and finesse

Along with actors like Alison Steadman and John Thaw, Dench belongs to a small group of performers who have lent class and finesse to a dazzling range of material, from situation comedy to big screen blockbusters. The first hints of her talent came in the 1966 serial Talking to a Stranger. This suffocating psychodrama was a feast of brilliant acting, and a success Dench built on with a performance as a sexy Titania in Peter Hall's film of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Masterful Macbeth: But it was as Lady Macbeth that Dench created the most brilliant feat of her acting career. Dame Edith Evans famously refused to play the role owing to her belief that the part was incomplete, that the character's psychological collapse happened offstage and allowed the actor little opportunity to convey such a huge plot development. But in 1978 Dench pulled it off with one of the most hair-raising scenes in TV history, somehow encapsulating that vague theatrical concept of "going mad" with her now legendary satanic scream. Comedy and drama: She switched to lighter fare with the delightfully assured sitcom A Fine Romance, which gave her the chance to showcase her warmth and impeccable comic timing. She managed to use her maternal qualities to even greater effect in the magnificent On Giant's Shoulders, an astounding BBC play which chronicled the story of a couple's attempts to adopt a Thalidomide child.If Dench's work has moved into more crowd-pleasing areas, from Bond movies to nostalgic period dramas, she still allows herself plenty of opportunity to give us those Lady Macbeth moments. She remains compelling in movies like Iris and stage roles like Sondheim's A Little Night Music, in which her intimate performance of Send in the Clowns was an expressive tour de force.-Simon Farqhar