Judi Dench has long been celebrated as one of the greatest Shakespearean actors of her era, with a career spanning stage performances from Hamlet in 1957 to The Winter’s Tale in 2015. She is widely associated with Shakespeare’s work and has often spoken with admiration about “The Bard,” but there is one major exception in her career: The Merchant of Venice.
In a 1971 production directed by Trevor Nunn, Dench played Portia alongside her husband, Michael Williams, who portrayed Bassanio. Despite the personal and professional context of the role, Dench later said she deeply disliked the experience from the beginning to the end. She described dreading going to the theatre every night and made clear that she considered the play itself to be “horrible.” Her criticism was not limited to the production; she also said Shakespeare must have been “having a funny turn” when he wrote it.
Dench initially accepted the part because Nunn persuaded her to do it and because Williams was in the cast. She hoped the production might grow on her over time, but she later admitted that it never did. Instead, each day during the run, she reportedly found herself thinking about how much she disliked having to perform in the play again that night. Looking back, she described the entire experience as “very below par,” a phrase that underscored just how strongly she felt about it.
Her reaction is striking because Dench is usually among Shakespeare’s most devoted interpreters. Over the decades, she returned repeatedly to major Shakespeare productions, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Much Ado About Nothing, Romeo and Juliet, and Twelfth Night. However, The Merchant of Venice was a clear outlier and remained the only time she took on the role of Portia.
More than 50 years later, Dench’s comments still stand out for their bluntness and for the unusual sight of a lifelong Shakespearean performer openly rejecting one of his best-known plays. Her remarks reflect not only her strong personal feelings about the material, but also the extent to which she was willing to speak honestly about a production that she considered a misfire.
The story offers a rare glimpse into the working life of a performer whose public reputation is defined by reverence for Shakespeare. In Dench’s case, the love of the playwright’s work is real, but not unconditional. The Merchant of Venice remains the one Shakespeare play she has made clear she would rather leave in the past.
