This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of W NYC Studios and the New Yorker.

This is the New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

You don't like me Bond. You don't like my methods. You think I'm an accountant.

A bean count are more interested in my numbers and your instincts.

The thought had occurred to me.

Good.

Because I think you're a sexist misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold War.

So wild guess here, a lot more of us have seen Judy Denge as M, the Intelligence Chief, who is the

boss of James Bond, than anything she's done in Shakespeare, particularly in the theater.

Hail King that shall be!

Hail King that shall be!

They met me in the day of success and I have learned by the perfectest

report. They have more in... They have more in them than mortal knowledge.

But it's in Shakespeare's plays in the theater that Denge made her home and her reputation.

She's played nearly all the big female roles, and she's distilled that body of knowledge and experience into a book called

Shakespeare, the man who pays the rent. It's a collaboration with the actor Brendan

O'Hay and it delves into each role in each production that she's performed in.

Dench has trouble with her vision and she can't read a script anymore,

but she has an enormous store of Shakespeare always at the ready.

Could I ask you to recite a sonnet?

I can do one for you now if you like.

Sure, that would be fantastic.

...