Entertainment Dame Judi Dench Joan Plowright Maggie Smith

Dame Joan Plowright’s death aged 95 has made her majestically blunt career chat with Maggie Smith and Judi Dench go viral all over again

The new year is barely a fortnight old and we’ve already lost a few screen legends. Director David Lynch died this week. Now comes the news of the death of legendary British actress Dame Joan Plowright, aged 95.

Plowright – or Baroness Olivier, to give her the grand title she deserves – enjoyed a 60-year career, and was also famous for marrying Lawrence Olivier in 1961.

As the tributes flow in for Dame Joan, many people are re-sharing clips of the actress from the wonderful 2018 documentary Nothing Like A Dame (or Tea With The Dames, as it’s known in some parts of the world).

The film consists of Joan, Dame Judi Dench, Dame Eileen Atkins and the late Dame Maggie Smith (who died last September) sitting around discussing their careers – and every moment of it is just glorious.

Here she is talking about having too many titles.

But one exchange in particular stands out. In it, Joan talks to Maggie and Judi about how she wasn’t getting as much acting work in movies since her eyesight starting failing and becoming registered blind.

She quips how her US agent once told her to come back and they’ll try to get Joan “a nice little cameo that Judi Dench hasn’t got her paws on”.

To which Judi exclaims: “How rude!”

And the good news is, the whole movie is currently available on BBC iPlayer (until Monday night, January 20).