Speaker 1: You are listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with
Speaker 1: Montclair name Judy Dench is not just a national and
Speaker 1: international treasure, She's an interplanetary treasure if there is life
Speaker 1: on Mars. They're talking about her most recent performance. Judy
Speaker 1: is a woman of warmth, a woman of wit. A
Speaker 1: friend tells a story that when he mentioned to Judy
Speaker 1: hadn't seen the royal family, Judy replied, tell me when
Speaker 1: you're coming, and I'll be sure to overact for you.
Speaker 1: After record this conversation, Judy's having lunch in the river Cafe.
Speaker 1: We are planning to definitely overcook for this woman, a
Speaker 1: friend I admire, respect and adore.
Speaker 2: On the mains while we've got these beautiful, really sweet
Speaker 2: grapes at the moment which passed so well with the grouse.
Speaker 1: And there's turbot and sea bears, oh my worm monsterish
Speaker 1: you can have everything. We have had people come and
Speaker 1: order everything on.
Speaker 3: The and did they stay for a month or per
Speaker 3: a month?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, for a month. Yeah. I always say a
Speaker 1: recipe is half science and half poetry, and so we're
Speaker 1: going to skip the science and read the poetry. How
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 3: Yes, well, I would love to have read a recipe,
Speaker 3: or even given you a recipe, but we'll come to
Speaker 3: that later. But you are talking to the worst cookie
Speaker 3: in Britain. And I think it wasn't a sonnet about food.
Speaker 3: But I just know this one poem, but it's Hilaire Belloc,
Speaker 3: and it's about.
Speaker 1: Henry King, Henry King, Henry King.
Speaker 3: Here he goes. The chief defect of Henry King was
Speaker 3: chewing little bits of string. At last he swallowed some
Speaker 3: that tied itself in ugly knots inside. Physicians of the
Speaker 3: utmost fame were called at once, But when they came,
Speaker 3: they answered, as they took their fees, there is no
Speaker 3: cure for this disease. Henry will very soon be dead.
Speaker 3: His parents stood about his bed, lamenting his untimely death.
Speaker 3: When Henry cried with latest breath, Oh, my friends, be
Speaker 3: warned by me that breakfast, dinner, lunch and tea are
Speaker 3: all the human frame requires. With that, the wretched child expires.
Speaker 1: The wretched child. So as he make of this poem, Well,
Speaker 1: he was quite a lectural Bellock, wasn't he. He liked
Speaker 1: to tell everyone what to do, and children how to
Speaker 1: be polite.
Speaker 3: It's rather sad. He was rather grim.
Speaker 1: I think that Bellock, well, it's you know, there's a message, right,
Speaker 1: don't snack? Is that the message? Or you might don't snack?
Speaker 1: What was it like growing up? You grew up in Yorkshire?
Speaker 3: I did. I was born in York. My brothers were
Speaker 3: born in Lancashire. My mother was from Dublin, my father
Speaker 3: from Dorset and who went to Dublin. And recently in
Speaker 3: the last year I found out that my mother's side
Speaker 3: of the family is Danish and goes back to somebody
Speaker 3: who worked at elsinore in fact Son and was there
Speaker 3: when Shakespeare's first company went over there. I was brought
Speaker 3: up during the war. I was five when the war
Speaker 3: broke out, and we were very lucky because my power
Speaker 3: was a doctor and he used to visit all the
Speaker 3: farms all around York as well as York itself, and
Speaker 3: everyone used to say, Oh, do have a chicken, Do
Speaker 3: have goose? Do have a duck? We were really lucky
Speaker 3: and that way we had we always had food and things.
Speaker 3: And that's also where we had sixteen cats, because there
Speaker 3: was nobody else in the neighbors sixteen cats. We did
Speaker 3: sixteen because nobody wanted their.
Speaker 1: Pets, you know, they all need them.
Speaker 3: Put them out, But they all came round to our place.
Speaker 3: It was a triumph.
Speaker 1: And who would cook the food? Would your mother? Would
Speaker 1: you sit down to family meals?
Speaker 3: Yes?
Speaker 1: Or how many you have siblings? Who did?
Speaker 3: Two brothers, two brothers older than me? But and we
Speaker 3: always had the house full of friends. Meals were a
Speaker 3: great thing. I'm always trying to say. Now, you know,
Speaker 3: do enjoy sitting down at the table and not looking
Speaker 3: at the phone if possible?
Speaker 1: What was it like the meal time at your house?
Speaker 1: Was there always a discussion and.
Speaker 3: Always singing, singing, a lot of singing. My ma playing
Speaker 3: the piano. My father could recite the whole of them, Arthur.
Speaker 3: My brother Jeff, who was an actor long before me
Speaker 3: and at Stratford, used to know reams of Shakespeare and
Speaker 3: it was kind of I think that was in the
Speaker 3: family very much before that. People used to be able
Speaker 3: to I mean, I remember sitting on the stairs and
Speaker 3: hearing friends who were invited around, and somebody singing and
Speaker 3: playing the piano, and you know, you couldn't miss the arts.
Speaker 1: So when you think of your early meals, you think
Speaker 1: more of the performance.
Speaker 3: I think only of family meals round the table, and
Speaker 3: it was a family thing that you wouldn't miss because
Speaker 3: that's when you got to actually discuss things and talk
Speaker 3: about things and.
Speaker 1: Who would cook.
Speaker 3: My mom would cook, or we had a wonderful person
Speaker 3: called Sissy.
Speaker 1: What did she cook? As your actually has a very
Speaker 1: definite regional food.
Speaker 3: It was course, it was mostly what you could afford
Speaker 3: to get. And I remember there was a market in
Speaker 3: New York, a wonderful market. You'd go around and people
Speaker 3: would come in and they'd have a chicken in a basket,
Speaker 3: you know, all prepared for cooking and things. And I
Speaker 3: mean I could get the rations for five people when
Speaker 3: I was six. I could easily go and carry the
Speaker 3: rations which were so minimal for everybody. But I never
Speaker 3: remember Ruthy being hungry or thinking, gosh, you know, I
Speaker 3: wish there was more of this.
Speaker 1: I don't remember remember that we were in red really lucky,
Speaker 1: and your father didn't go away. He was he was
Speaker 1: away in the First World War.
Speaker 3: He was he was a hero. He got the military
Speaker 3: Cross and bar he got so you know where he was.
Speaker 3: He was in Arras and then because of a knee
Speaker 3: injury that he'd got, he was sent home to have
Speaker 3: and that.
Speaker 1: He got.
Speaker 3: He was not at Passiondale was just fantastically well lucky
Speaker 3: is not really the word.
Speaker 1: And so for your father to have been in the
Speaker 1: war and then come home, I.
Speaker 3: Know, it was an extraordinary thing. And I knew, I
Speaker 3: knew about his war record, but I didn't know it
Speaker 3: was quite so illustrious.
Speaker 1: Which was And do you think that Do you think
Speaker 1: your parents wanted to be actors or to be singers
Speaker 1: or part of their nature?
Speaker 3: No, my father there was an amateur group in New
Speaker 3: York called the Settlement Players. My power and were part
Speaker 3: of that. Mammy never wanted to act, which she was
Speaker 3: wonderful seamstress and could make costumes and things like that.
Speaker 3: Then when it came to the mystery plays, the miracle plays,
Speaker 3: when they were done for the first time, Daddy played
Speaker 3: and asked the High Priest and we were a lot
Speaker 3: of us were auditioned by Martin Brown. I were to
Speaker 3: quake a board in school in York, and we were,
Speaker 3: we made angels, we were, We had a wonderful time,
Speaker 3: wonderful time.
Speaker 1: You remember the first auditions that would have been what
Speaker 1: age was your first one?
Speaker 3: It wasn't really an audition they just came and said you, you, you, you,
Speaker 3: and you.
Speaker 1: And when did you know that that's what you wanted
Speaker 1: to do?
Speaker 3: What I wanted to do, not ages, not for not
Speaker 3: until fifty three, because I wanted to be a designer,
Speaker 3: stage design, stage designer. But I was taken to Stratford
Speaker 3: by my parents and saw Michael Redgrave in Lear, and
Speaker 3: I can remember seeing this set which completely changed my idea.
Speaker 3: During your holidays at school, I had assisted vote the
Speaker 3: design at York rep painting sets for him. And I
Speaker 3: only really understood plays by three acts. You know, you
Speaker 3: designed one act and then the curtain would come down.
Speaker 3: You change a few things and we'll go on. But
Speaker 3: for Lear at Stratford, it was the most phenomenal set
Speaker 3: that never changed. It was a huge flat disc that
Speaker 3: revolved with a rock in the middle of it that
Speaker 3: was the throne or the cave or nothing had to
Speaker 3: be changed. The whoby was kind of continuous. And that
Speaker 3: that I thought, No, goodbye, York Art School, I'm going
Speaker 3: to try for Central.
Speaker 1: When you went on these theatrical journeys with your parents,
Speaker 1: you went to Stratford, you went to the theater in
Speaker 1: New York. Would you go to a restaurant before or after?
Speaker 1: Was that part of the evening? Was that part of
Speaker 1: the experience.
Speaker 3: It was partly, but probably we always in a rush,
Speaker 3: always in a rush to get things on time. But
Speaker 3: there was a restaurant that we used to that used
Speaker 3: to be the most enormous street to go to outside York,
Speaker 3: and we used to cycle there.
Speaker 1: This would be post war, this would be that.
Speaker 3: Was post war, yes, but we all had bikes, so
Speaker 3: we that was the greatest and.
Speaker 1: To a restaurant simply wonderful.
Speaker 3: It's called the bid we It was wonderful. It was
Speaker 3: wonderful food. I mean, not investigated in any way, not
Speaker 3: in any way.
Speaker 1: And so what are the dishes of your childhood that
Speaker 1: you remember that? Did you have Yorkshire pudding?
Speaker 3: We did have. I tell you something. Tell me we
Speaker 3: used to have at school. I used to try and
Speaker 3: stay away on a Tuesday because as they used to
Speaker 3: do Yorkshire pudding with treacle. Now even now that's that
Speaker 3: was really.
Speaker 1: So it was a dessert, or they served the treacle
Speaker 1: Yorkshire pudding with beef.
Speaker 3: It's so disgusting. But it was always on a Tuesday.
Speaker 3: And I used to feign illness on a Tuesday and
Speaker 3: on about the third or fourth Tuesday, my ma said,
Speaker 3: this is something about school. This is not to do
Speaker 3: with illness. And it was the Yorkshire pudding with a tree.
Speaker 3: The school was that was at my prep school.
Speaker 1: But that's food was important to you.
Speaker 3: Food matter, It didn't matter because of course during the war,
Speaker 3: of course, it was just something to sustain you. And
Speaker 3: as I say it, because of my power visiting right
Speaker 3: around in the country, we were just so lucky that
Speaker 3: we had enough to eat, but so many people didn't know.
Speaker 1: I often think that when people are very critical of
Speaker 1: food in Britain in the fifties or even the sixties,
Speaker 1: Britain had come out of a war, They came out
Speaker 1: of rationing, they came out of kitchen gardens where people
Speaker 1: didn't have food. And to go from that to you know,
Speaker 1: grand cuisine or to cooking, it seems so unfair to
Speaker 1: criticize a nation that had suffered food wise, to being
Speaker 1: critical of, you know, the way they cooked. You know.
Speaker 1: So I feel it must have been very tough.
Speaker 3: Yes, it was. It was just a question of giving
Speaker 3: you something that filled you, yeah, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But also I mean, I love the idea of
Speaker 1: your mother cooking a goose, or cooking duck, or cooking
Speaker 1: the food that was getting We.
Speaker 3: Grew on vegetables. We grew the vegetables in the garden
Speaker 3: and next door it was the most wonderful pear tree.
Speaker 3: And my brother and I, Jeff, the younger of my jib,
Speaker 3: used to get a rake and rake the pears off
Speaker 3: the tree into the garden. Yeah, it was quite a
Speaker 3: lot of pears.
Speaker 1: What would you do? What would you was illegal? Was it?
Speaker 1: Because it wasn't your tree tree? Okay? There? What would
Speaker 1: you remember? What your mother would cook with the pears?
Speaker 1: Which is st them? Or would you have I.
Speaker 3: Think she would, yes, I think she would student or
Speaker 3: we just get them, you know?
Speaker 1: Yeah, delicious fruit pears, aren't they do? Still like them?
Speaker 1: I like pears.
Speaker 3: I quite like pears. Yeah, I've got a picture of
Speaker 3: few in the garden actually recently.
Speaker 1: What's your garden like? Did you have a garden?
Speaker 3: I have a beauti crow. Yes. I grew trees, mostly trees.
Speaker 3: There were lots of different trees. But we have some
Speaker 3: apples and one of them is a Russic which is
Speaker 3: very nice. And we have, as I say, these pear trees.
Speaker 3: We had a wonderful green gage tree, but it came
Speaker 3: down in a storm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gage is very very sprink cages. The River Cafe Cafe,
Speaker 1: our all day space and just steps away from the restaurant,
Speaker 1: is now open. In the morning an Italian breakfast with cornetti,
Speaker 1: chiambella and crostada from our pastry kitchen. In the afternoon,
Speaker 1: ice creamed coops and River Cafe classic desserts. We have
Speaker 1: sharing plates Salumi, misti, mozzarella, busquetto red and yellow peppers,
Speaker 1: Vitello tonado and more. Come in the evening for cocktails
Speaker 1: with our resident pianist in the bar. No need to book,
Speaker 1: see you here, so doing the menus. Eliza had a
Speaker 1: blank sheet of paper she came in the morning. It's
Speaker 1: rather like your house. You go in the fridge, you
Speaker 1: see what's there, you see what's been ordered. You've sort
Speaker 1: of also, you know, we're always thinking about what I
Speaker 1: always say, what would I watch you for lunch? Today?
Speaker 3: You're not coming to my house, and I beg you are.
Speaker 2: I was so excited to make this beautiful clam taggerini,
Speaker 2: which I know Ruthie's is one of Ruthie's favorite pastas.
Speaker 2: Where we cook the bongolay in advance with garlic and parsi,
Speaker 2: storks and chili, and then we pick all the clams
Speaker 2: out of their shells and reduce the white wine and
Speaker 2: the olive oil and the butter, and then we toss
Speaker 2: that through fresh handcuff taggoerini, which is one of my
Speaker 2: favorite things that I've ever had.
Speaker 1: Had a bit of a cafe, and.
Speaker 2: We've also got this amazing slow cooked pheasant and partridge
Speaker 2: sauce which is a ragou that we make with lots
Speaker 2: of different wildbirds at this time of year, and we
Speaker 2: put chestnuts and mince panchetta in. That's really wonderful.
Speaker 3: Now we're really talking about perfect.
Speaker 1: We do write our menu every day.
Speaker 3: It makes it special and exciting, which is what a
Speaker 3: restaurant should be and isn't very much.
Speaker 1: When you left this Mother's wonderful family of theater and
Speaker 1: cooking geese and sitting around the table and singing songs
Speaker 1: and having friends over, it sounds so warm and so inclusive.
Speaker 1: What was it like when you actually then came to
Speaker 1: London and food wise? Were you on a budget? Did
Speaker 1: you have to cook it out? What did you do? Never?
Speaker 3: I had to tell you a story. Okay, when I
Speaker 3: was awarded the Obe and my agent at the time
Speaker 3: had been in Central with me, Julian Belfridge. He came
Speaker 3: down to lunch and I gave him lamb cutlets. I
Speaker 3: made an enormous effort. He finished them, and whatever I
Speaker 3: gave him I can't remember for a dessert. And he
Speaker 3: sat back and he said, well, I'll tell you something, Judy,
Speaker 3: He said, you didn't get the open for cooking.
Speaker 1: Nothing like having a support of It's good to be told,
Speaker 1: isn't it. It's good funny there was what did you
Speaker 1: eat there? You are going.
Speaker 3: To when we were old that when we got well,
Speaker 3: when we got to Central, Oh, it was, it was glorious.
Speaker 3: We used to go to it was somewhere in Kensington
Speaker 3: High Street. But we used to also go to a
Speaker 3: restaurant called a Capernina in Soho and that was the
Speaker 3: greatest treat.
Speaker 1: So that was Italian food. That was Italian food. It
Speaker 1: was absolutely and it was affordable. You could do so
Speaker 1: they're on a student budget.
Speaker 3: Just about just about. But you it were nice to
Speaker 3: be taken there. I must say, that was an enormous treat.
Speaker 1: Do you remember a kind of multicultural restaurants. Do you remember
Speaker 1: Indian because a lot of you know, the cheapest food,
Speaker 1: certainly when I came in the sixties was Greek, Indian, Chinese.
Speaker 3: I mean that was a huge treat to be able
Speaker 3: to eat, you know, to eat Chinese and as always say, Italian.
Speaker 3: And it was a real luxury suddenly to be able
Speaker 3: to go to go or be taken to somewhere, and
Speaker 3: you have the luxury of really the choice of things
Speaker 3: to have to eat. And you know, I'll never take
Speaker 3: that for granted.
Speaker 1: I don't think were you ever hungry as a student?
Speaker 1: Did you were the days?
Speaker 3: I don't think so. I don't ever remember that.
Speaker 1: You probably had a grant, did you? In the days
Speaker 1: when they.
Speaker 3: Know I didn't have a grant. I lived in QA
Speaker 3: Queen Alexandra's house, which is right by the Albert Hall
Speaker 3: where Central was, and so all that was I don't
Speaker 3: know how my phone.
Speaker 1: They did they did. That's good.
Speaker 3: So we were lucky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and suddenly started getting roles at the National Theater and.
Speaker 3: I went straight to the VIC. But I mean, I've
Speaker 3: never been I've never been a good cook or even
Speaker 3: any cook of any kind, so you will I have
Speaker 3: tried I have tried. I can do two things. I
Speaker 3: can make white sauce and I can make gravy.
Speaker 1: Well that's pretty good, I'd say, that's all.
Speaker 3: I can do. But I used to at the VIC.
Speaker 3: Alec mccowran was at the VIC at the same time
Speaker 3: as me, and he used to live in the King's
Speaker 3: Road but three minutes from my flat. We used to
Speaker 3: have Sunday lunch together and he used to cook, and
Speaker 3: he used to always it would be a very usual thing.
Speaker 3: We were in the importance together and you know we
Speaker 3: knew each other, frank, but he used to send me
Speaker 3: a little note saying, would the gravy Queen or the
Speaker 3: white sauce Queen come on Sunday and have lunch? And
Speaker 3: he did all the rest.
Speaker 1: You were at the old firkt. Who are the directors
Speaker 1: that you?
Speaker 3: Oh, Michael Bental, Yeah, Michael Bentle at the VIC and
Speaker 3: Doug his seal and oh it was housey days. I
Speaker 3: loved it. And I despite having had not very good
Speaker 3: notices as Ophelia, which is my first part, I remember
Speaker 3: Michael Bentele said he said, we'll just get over these notices.
Speaker 3: He said, you will get better, and he said I'll
Speaker 3: go on employing you and you can play small parts
Speaker 3: and walk on, but you can stay at the VIC.
Speaker 3: And you know that that was such I was so
Speaker 3: lucky and then a National and then Nottingham Playhouse with
Speaker 3: Johnny Neville, Who's Hamlet? When I went to the VIC
Speaker 3: and we took he was we were the very first
Speaker 3: company to ever go to West Africa.
Speaker 1: Do you remember that very well?
Speaker 3: I remember it very well. Indeed there set plays were
Speaker 3: Twelfth Night, Macbeth and Arms and the Man.
Speaker 1: What was the audience?
Speaker 3: Young children, young people at school?
Speaker 1: And because it was that the British Council was a
Speaker 1: British council And do you remember the culture of food there?
Speaker 2: I do?
Speaker 1: I do? The food the food a kind of stew
Speaker 1: probably are quite meat based.
Speaker 3: Might well have been.
Speaker 1: Which which actually is a question I also like to
Speaker 1: ask would when you act, when you're in a play,
Speaker 1: do you eat before?
Speaker 3: Do you know after?
Speaker 1: You need to tell me about you you're in a play.
Speaker 1: You might be doing a matinee.
Speaker 3: And sometimes, if you're lucky for it, do you get
Speaker 3: to eat in the place.
Speaker 1: I know you have a story about that's one. But
Speaker 1: if you're if you might not be eating in the play.
Speaker 1: So there's a day you're in a play in the
Speaker 1: West End or at the National or at the Old
Speaker 1: Vic and you wake up in the morning and you
Speaker 1: know you have a matinee and you have an evening performance.
Speaker 1: Judy Dench, what would you what would your day be like?
Speaker 3: In terms of I probably, I'd probably I'd have coffee
Speaker 3: in the morning or tea. I wouldn't eat very much.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't eat much before. I'd eat just something before matinee,
Speaker 3: not much, not lunch, and mostly eat afterwards after.
Speaker 1: The evening performance or after the matinee, after the evening before.
Speaker 1: That's a very I like going to see a friend
Speaker 1: of friends I have in the theater and then going out.
Speaker 1: They always like to go out for dinner afterwards, and
Speaker 1: there's some joyousness is dinner.
Speaker 3: It is wonderful as long as you don't have a
Speaker 3: match in the other next stay. Do you know that's tricky,
Speaker 3: But I'm in the luxury of doing do shows and
Speaker 3: knowing you're going out to dinner off TWI yeah, it's
Speaker 3: just glorious.
Speaker 1: And then other nights you would just go home and
Speaker 1: crash or was there a kind of Probably? I always
Speaker 1: say that there's sort of links between the theater of a
Speaker 1: restaurant and the theater of the theater. You know that
Speaker 1: we have a kind of curtain up at a certain time,
Speaker 1: and then there's the performance, and then there's after the performance.
Speaker 1: And if I do an evening, I can sometimes do
Speaker 1: a night where the curtain goes up, somebody walks in
Speaker 1: and you're ready and you know it's going to be
Speaker 1: a great night, or you just know sometimes even just
Speaker 1: by the way the first table sits down, or the
Speaker 1: way perhaps one of the chefs is coming a bit
Speaker 1: late or they seem a bit tired, that maybe it's
Speaker 1: not going to go so well. And then sometimes the
Speaker 1: one the ones that you think won't are the best nights,
Speaker 1: and sometimes the ones you think won't are not the
Speaker 1: best night. But there's a kind of both a kind
Speaker 1: of feeling of energy after the performance and also exhaustion.
Speaker 3: It's terribly similar. It's very very similar, and super nights
Speaker 3: when you want it to go well. I don't know
Speaker 3: whether this applies to well, it never applies to your restaurant, definitely,
Speaker 3: not when I've ever been here, But you know it's
Speaker 3: the night that it doesn't go well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you don't know why you way have the same script,
Speaker 1: you know, the same the same actors.
Speaker 3: The same set, same place, same and there's no explanation
Speaker 3: for why. That's the excitement of it.
Speaker 1: H In two thousand and eight, the living room in
Speaker 1: our home was transformed into a magical space, not by
Speaker 1: painting the walls a different color or hanging a work
Speaker 1: of art, but solely do to day in Judy Dench
Speaker 1: walking in for two hours, she captivated one hundred people,
Speaker 1: telling stories, singing songs, reciting Shakespeare, all in her unmistakable
Speaker 1: voice and beautiful demeanor. We were all there to raise
Speaker 1: funds for the North Wall and Outreach Arts Lab project,
Speaker 1: close to Judy's heart. I remember that when you did
Speaker 1: that performance at our house, and it was part of
Speaker 1: a whole series that we did of giving performances and
Speaker 1: then we each chose a charity. I think that night
Speaker 1: you chose the Arts project, and I did med Saint
Speaker 1: ramand and we did one with Ian McKellen and Raife.
Speaker 1: What I remember, as I said, was the magic in
Speaker 1: the room. But I also remember that you found it
Speaker 1: kind of intimidated.
Speaker 3: We had I had to walk downstairs.
Speaker 1: Remember, I had to come upstairs and say okay, and
Speaker 1: then Richard Ire had to come upstairs, and I thought,
Speaker 1: I have Judy chefstairs, who has performed in front of
Speaker 1: thousands of people in the Nash Parry. And then and
Speaker 1: then you came down and there were you know, a
Speaker 1: hundred people who are only there to see you, maybe
Speaker 1: even fewer, maybe eighty or sixty, and it was quite overwhelming.
Speaker 1: And remember that.
Speaker 3: I do remember walking down the stairs and George Fenton
Speaker 3: playing the piano.
Speaker 1: George Fenton.
Speaker 3: I can't remember what I sang.
Speaker 1: Okay, well, I found the invitation and the title of
Speaker 1: the evening was These Foolish Things, Yes, And I was
Speaker 1: wondering if you're saying that, I think I know that song.
Speaker 3: I do the lipstreak the remind me of you. But
Speaker 3: I sang something else and I can't remember, because I
Speaker 3: remember hosting it a lot at box with George.
Speaker 1: I did do yeah, yeah, And we did some singing
Speaker 1: with Richard Aire. Do you remember used to sing And
Speaker 1: one night we got a piano and we sang around
Speaker 1: the piano and it was It's something. It's one of
Speaker 1: the great things to do in life, isn't it all?
Speaker 3: Singing around a piano.
Speaker 1: Ye, should we do that? We should really really love
Speaker 1: let's do it. I have a piano in my house.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 1: You have a night and have something that is organize
Speaker 1: really lovely. What is the play when you said you
Speaker 1: had to cook on your onstage?
Speaker 3: Do you know when the paycock? Oh, it's wonderful play.
Speaker 1: I know the play. But I was one where I had.
Speaker 3: To cook for Norman rod Away. She cooks a sausage
Speaker 3: for him to eat, and she hafter awhile people say,
Speaker 3: you know he's eating that sausage and it's not cooked.
Speaker 3: It's simply there isn't time for her to cook that sausage.
Speaker 1: So you actually put a raw sausage in a frying pan?
Speaker 3: Yes? Oh, yes, so then we pre cooked the sausage.
Speaker 3: Well we're cheating a bit here.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Is that the only play where you've actually cooked one?
Speaker 3: Probably?
Speaker 1: We've talked about theater? What about film sets? What about bond?
Speaker 1: Were They.
Speaker 3: Never sent me anywhere? Kept me in a little room
Speaker 3: at the back. And I once said to Barbara and Michael,
Speaker 3: I said, you know, you go to such glamorous places,
Speaker 3: and all I am I'm in that office at the
Speaker 3: back all the time. So the next time. The next
Speaker 3: film we made, I can't remember which one it was.
Speaker 3: We were at Stowe's School and they gave me a
Speaker 3: trailer my makeup and everything, which had Innsbruck written across
Speaker 3: the side, and Barbara's it to me, you can never
Speaker 3: complain again every day you're going to every day to Innsbrook.
Speaker 3: How did you get to Panama?
Speaker 1: Panama? Which one that was? Do you know it's bond
Speaker 1: take place in Panama? I remember there was.
Speaker 3: I did eight of them because specter I just did
Speaker 3: a morning which was just me giving him the message
Speaker 3: on the television or on his machine. So I can't
Speaker 3: remember which one it was.
Speaker 1: What about did you ever do you ever remember being
Speaker 1: on a set where you ate, well.
Speaker 3: They gave you something you don't kind of in a
Speaker 3: way feel like, yeah, you know afterwards it's quite a different.
Speaker 1: Directors don't like stopping for lunch. If you talk to
Speaker 1: people who have made independent movies or small movies, they
Speaker 1: always say that stopping for lunch stops the kind of process.
Speaker 3: And you know, even in the manud of any kind
Speaker 3: of rehearsal, it's not the treaties to know you're going
Speaker 3: in the evening something that's the greatest treat to look forward.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: The question that I ask everyone is the food is
Speaker 1: what we need to sustain our and food is what
Speaker 1: we cook when we want to impress someone or share.
Speaker 1: It's also something we find comfort in food. And so
Speaker 1: named Judy Dench, what is your comfort food?
Speaker 3: Comfort food mashed potato and some really good gravy. Onion,
Speaker 3: gravy and mashed potato. I quite like that.
Speaker 1: Thank you. It's been a wonderful time with you and
Speaker 1: now we'll go have some lunch in the River Cafe.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table for in partnership
Speaker 1: with Montclair