Judi Dench has the critics enchanted by 'Midsummer Night's Dream'

One has to be careful what one says about Judi Dench. Last March, when Charles Spencer unwisely described her performance in Madame de Sade as "sour and cross" and suggested that it had been delivered in "formidable old-boot mode", Dame Judi unwisely wrote him a letter explaining that he was "an absolute shit" and she was "sorry I didn't get a chance to kick you". Classy, says Leo Benedictus of The Guardian

Obviously undaunted, the septuagenarian Dench has now taken on another major, slightly risky role as the amorous Queen Titania in Peter Hall's new A Midsummer Night's Dream. As Spencer himself observes, perhaps a touch ungallantly: "The Fairy Queen is usually played by a voluptuous actress in her thirties […] Wouldn't the effect of watching a woman so advanced in years falling passionately in love with an ass be more grotesque than amusing?" Well, if the consensus among the overnight critics is any guide, apparently not.

This is partly because Hall's casting has a specific purpose. "In a silent prologue," explains Sarah Hemming in the FT, "Dench, clad as Elizabeth I, takes a script from the assembled actors then sweeps off stage to prepare to play Titania." The implication, in other words, is that the Dream itself becomes a play within a play (and therefore, if you're still with me, Pyramus and Thisbe becomes a play within a play within a play), in which the affairs of Shakespeare's own ageing ruler become a developing subtext for those played out on stage. As, indeed, does Dench's own illustrious history. She won an Oscar for her appearance as Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love, after all. And, as the Guardian's Michael Billington notes, she "is no stranger to Titania. She played the role at school in York in the 1940s and on stage and film for Peter Hall in the 1960s." (Though, for once, Billington was not actually reviewing these performances.)

Opinions on the value of Hall's twist are somewhat mixed, but everybody agrees – with rare and raucous unanimity – that Dame Judi, without question, gives good queen. "Dench is superb," says Hemming. "[She] finds the dark resonance in her speech about the changing climate and [adds] a touch of regal steel to her commands. Her verse speaking has beautiful clarity."

"But it's when she falls for Oliver Chris's transformed Bottom," says Benedict Nightingale in the Times, "that Dench is at her hilarious best: stroking his ass's head, rapturously murmuring 'I love thee', and looking as enchanted as if she's personally sunk the entire Spanish Armada." Billington adds: "I've never seen a Titania more vocally and spiritually enraptured." And in the Standard, Henry Hitchings is with them all the way. "Dench is both regal and lyrical," he enthuses, "communicating an affecting musicality; an exit becomes the sort of glimmering farewell you'd find in a John Donne poem."

And what of Spencer? How does he handle this awkward situation? Well, with lashings of near-obsequious praise. "I underestimated Dame Judi's greatness as an actress," he says, bowing three times and backing out of the room. "Even sporting a curly ginger fright-wig, [she] looks wonderful as Titania. I feared she might relapse into her default mode of sour old boot [attentive readers will note that phrase], but there is a radiance and humour to her performance that simply refuses to acknowledge her years." Isn't it wonderful what a little well-aimed swearing can accomplish?

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