You might recall our recent post on the upcoming tribute to Stephen Sondheim by Dame Judi Dench that was to occur at the BBC Proms this past Saturday night at Royal Albert Hall.

She described her part in the tribute as “hugely exciting but daunting“. After seeing the clip below of the performance, I’m reminded of her recent thoughts during our interview with her for the PBS British comedy writers program about the fear she always experienced when taping As Time Goes By. She remarked on how she would always stand just in the wings before going out for the next scene thinking, “….what am I doing?“. I’m not sure it was fear so much as it was her lifelong drive to always give the audience the best performance imaginable and then realizing that even with that best performance you are at the mercy of the studio audience to laugh given it’s a situation comedy.

That said, this is about as close to absolute perfection as you can get. No need to worry about audience laughter here. They were moved beyond belief at every word and note. Dame Judi is, indeed, a national treasure.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvHC4pzZh8M