Countryfile - Dame Judi Dench Countryfile Special - 09:20 am Friday, January 2 on BBC One London

About this Broadcast

Dame Judi Dench Countryfile Special
Season 2023, Episode 1

Judi Dench joins Charlotte Smith in the grounds of Inveraray Castle to reflect on the impact the countryside has had on her and her family. She's also joined by her grandson Sam to check in on a tartan that's being created for her in which every thread tells a personal story. Adam Henson meets her partner David Mills, who gave up dairying to create the British Wildlife Centre on his Surrey farm, while wildlife film-maker Hamza Yassin helps her fulfil a lifetime ambition to see golden eagles in the wild

HD subtitles repeat 16x9

Education/Science/Factual Topics Nature/Animals/Environment Rural/Agricultural

Did You Know..

Charlotte Smith (Presenter)

Adam Henson (Presenter)

Best Known For: Countryfile.

Early-life: Adam was born in 1966 on the farm where he now works, Bemborough Farm near Guiting Power, Gloucestershire. He spent some time on the Chatsworth Estate before attending Seale-Hayne Agricultural College in Newton Abbot. After graduating, he spent a year travelling through Australia with his friend and later business partner Duncan Andrews. They worked on sheep and arable stations and a kiwi plantation in New Zealand before returning to Australia to plant tea in Queensland.

Career: Henson's father started the Cotswold Farm Park that he now runs with Andrews. It attracts more than 70,000 visitors a year. Henson made the move to TV in 2001 when he began presenting on Countryfile. Since then, he has worked on Countryfile Summer Diaries, Inside Out, Lambing Live and Radio 4's On Your Farm and Farming Today. In 2013, he worked with culinary writer Nigel Slater on Nigel and Adam's Farm Kitchen. Slater cooked fresh versions of supermarket favourites using produce grown by Henson.

Quote: "There's not much chance of me becoming a media darling when I have to come back (to the farm) and muck out the pigs after filming!"

Trivia: In his spare time, Henson enjoys shopping for clothes.

Judi Dench (Guest)

Born: December 09, 1934 in York

Best Known For: Her Bond film appearances.

Early-life: Judith Olivia Dench was born on December 9, 1934, in York, the daughter of a doctor and his Irish wife. She attended Mount School, a Quaker institution, alongside author AS Byatt. She made her stage debut there - as a snail. Originally intending to be an artist, the experience changed her mind. She was also inspired by backstage visits to York Theatre Royal, where her father was the company's GP. She followed older brother Jeffrey to the Central School Of Speech And Drama.

Career: Dench made her professional debut with the Old Vic Company before joining the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1961, and has frequently worked on stage ever since. She became a household name in the 1980s thanks to sitcom A Fine Romance, for which she won a Bafta. She's also won the award for Four in the Morning, Talking to a Stranger, Iris, The Last of the Blonde Bombshells, Shakespeare In Love (for which she picked up an Oscar too), A Handful of Dust, Mrs Brown and A Room With a View. Other notable productions include Chocolat, Notes on a Scandal, J Edgar, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its sequel, and several Bond movies, including Skyfall, in which she bowed out as M.

Quote: "I just feel incredibly lucky to be employed. That's why I sometimes feel desperate, in case I'm not going to be cast again."

Trivia: She became a Dame of the British Empire in 1988.

Hamza Yassin (Contributor)

Mark Beech (Series editor)

Gavin Ahern (Series producer)