The co-star Judi Dench called a dick and why it was the “most wonderful moment” of their life
Under most circumstances, being called a dick by a co-worker isn’t something to be cherished, but when that co-worker calling you a dick is Judi Dench? Well, that’s an entirely different matter.
The diminutive dame and notorious prankster has a history with such things, and because she’s one of the most beloved figures in stage and screen, it’s completely understandable that anyone would love nothing more than to be on the receiving end of her latest act of mischief.
Spare a poor thought for the complete stranger who ended up being handed a note by the Academy Award winner asking them for a shag during a trip to the theatre, though, which was a case of mistaken identity that could have been interpreted as something else entirely, albeit worth the price of admission.
As one of the most endearing and decorated legends that British acting has ever seen, Dench wasn’t being malicious when she called one of her co-stars a dick. Still, working on your first feature film, sharing scenes with the storied veteran, and then being called a dick must have been quite the introduction to cinema.
Richard Eyre’s 2022 drama, Allelujah, remains the most recent big-screen credit of Dench’s career, with her fading eyesight making the chances of a return increasingly slim. She was at the tail-end of her filmography, but stage actor Bally Gill was at the very beginning of his, and he was understandably awestruck.
“Allelujah was my first feature film, and when I found out that I would be acting alongside Judi and there would be scenes just with the two of us, I was nervous,” he confessed. In their scene, they discussed the concept of marginalia, the technical term for notes that people scribble into the margins of their books.
On Dench’s last day on set, Gill returned to his trailer to discover that she’d given him a gift: a book called The History of Marginalia. “I read a lovely message in there,” he remembered. “But also instructions to turn to page ten, then on page ten to turn to page 33, and so on. On pages ten, 33, and 64, and then in the references, were circled words spelling out ‘you’, ‘are’, ‘a’, ‘dick’. That book has pride of place on my bookshelf.”
It wasn’t very mature of a woman who was in her late 80s at the time to buy someone a book for the express purpose of defacing it and using it for childish humour, but that’s Dench in a nutshell. She embroiders, but only with foul-mouthed messages, so it makes sense that she’d treat bespoke presents in the same way.
As for Gill, he was under no illusions that this was a moment to be cherished and treasured forever, with the actor happily admitting that “being called a dick by Judi Dench was the most wonderful moment of my life.”
