I am writing this in the wake of Dolly Parton’s death, so I am very much in the mood for the gentle celebration of ageing icons while we still have them. An hour of 91-year-old Judi Dench having tea with 87-year-old Ian McKellen? Sign me right up and I will not so much as breathe heavily in their direction lest anything go wrong.
McKellen – Sir Ian, “Serena” to his friends – navigates the “treacherous” pavement leading to Dame Judi’s fairytale 15th-century home in Surrey, which is as cosy and sparkling as its owner (if anyone is listening, I will take an hour of just Dench, taking us around the house and garden, like the world’s most mesmerising estate agent), and unwraps two lumps of parkin cake to go with their tea. One from Yorkshire, where Dench is from, and one from Lancashire because McKellen was – is – a Burnley (then Wigan, then Bolton) boy.
