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it s saturday, 13th january. our main story: the united states has confirmed it s carried out a fresh strike on a houthi target in yemen overnight, a day after both the us and uk carried out a series of raids on the iran backed group. the operation follows an attack by houthi rebels on commercial shipping vessels in the red sea. the group have said attacks in yemen will not go without punishment or retaliation . graham satchell reports. before and after satellite images show the impact of the american and british bombing raids. the americans say airfields and weapons storage depots were destroyed. the raf didn t take part in the attack overnight, but both the british and americans say the raids are vital to keep shipping routes open in the red sea. houthi militia have been targeting container ships off the yemeni coast for weeks. sometimes, like this, they have boarded vessels. in other attacks, they used drones and missiles. they say they are disrupting this key shi ....
Judi dench, welcome to this cultural life. Thank you, john. You were born in 193a and grew up in york. Set the scene for us. What was family life like . My father was a doctor. And i had two brothers, older than me. And of course, at that time, no television, nothing like that. So we all had bikes and we made our own entertainment. My second brother, jeff, only ever wanted to be an actor. My oldest brother wanted to be a doctor, like dad, and i wanted to be a designer, scenic designer. Thats what i set out to be. From a young age . From quite a young age, because we were taken to the theatre a lot, you know, we were taken to. I remember once going to see a cuckoo in the nest, and i laughed so. This couple was in bed and suddenly a chest at the end of the bed opened and a man stood up in vest and pants. And i was sick. I laughed so much, i was sick. My mother had to take me home. But the wonderful thing is that i was taken back a couple of nights later to see what happened. They laugh m ....
Six of us, i think, were angels in the first load of mystery plays. you made your professional debut soon after leaving drama school. yes, just after i left central, just before i was going to the vic. and i knew that i d been cast as ophelia and i wasn t allowed to tell anybody. in hamlet, in 1957, at the old vic. do you have memories of yourfirst night, of opening night, in hamlet? fear. fear. uh, no. i remember. ..memories of my second night, because the critics weren t kind to me! but what was so wonderful is that michael benthall, who ran the vic, said to me, i m going to keep you in the company, he said. and he said, you ll play other parts and you ll understudy all the time, and that way you ll learn. what did you learn from that experience? you said that the critics were pretty harsh. they were, because they ....
For any of them. when you were young actors starting out, you and your late husband michael williams used to refer to shakespeare as the man who pays the rent . yes, we called him that. michael was in one company, i was in the other, and shakespeare was the person who we were playing all the time. and so he was very much the man who paid the rent. what is he now to you? the man who pays the rent, probably. laughter well, he certainly. he s never been less than that. very, very, very important. he s referred to every day in my life, i think, probably, and i think he s referred to in most of our days, without us knowing. yeah, absolutely. heaven. judi dench, thank you so much for sharing your cultural life with us. not very cultural! thank you, john. quite a life, though. thank you. ....
Well, i haven t had to do it since my eyes have been this bad. but i will. i ll try. i ll find a way. what s the big part coming up, then? do you think that. ..that performance in the winter s tale, do you think that is possibly the last time we ll see you in shakespeare, onstage? oh, god, iwouldn t like to think that. probably is, but i m not going to say that. you never know, do you? i ve never been in 0thello. that would have been nice at some point. which of the many roles that you ve played over the years, the shakespearean roles i m talking about, when were you happiest onstage doing shakespeare? there must be a moment. i ve never not been. really? never not been. i mean, there are plays you like more. well, there s going to be. there must be some plays that you don t particularly like. i don t like the merchant of venice as a play. and michael and i, when we were first married at stratford, he played bassanio, and i played portia. i didn t like that. i still don t like that play ....