Who can resist the charming Cumber-Wiles of Benedict Cumberbatch? Nobody, that’s who! Apparently not even Dame Judi Dench who may have agreed to star opposite Cumberbatch in his upcoming BBC adaptation of  William Shakespeare’s Richard III.

The king’s name is a tower of strength! The King is named Cumberbatch.

Dame Judi appeared at the Hay Festival of Literature & Arts in Hay-on-Wye, Powys Wales this past weekend where she was giving a talk on the Bard’s work, when Cumberbatch, perfectly situated in the front row (not very distracting at all…) asked her a question during the Q&A section. In that familiar sexy baritone voice known to millions of Sherlock fans around the world he asked, “Would you like to be in Richard III with me?” 

I don’t know about Dame Judi…but he would have had me at “Would you?”…to which I would have leaped off the stage…iambic pentameter be damned…and shouted “YES! YES! I’ll marry you!”

Will you marry me?

But…I guess, he didn’t ask that. And Dame Judi is MUCH more reserved and classier than I am (or she wouldn’t be a Dame!) and thus she paused with just the right amount of dramatic inflection before answering “Yeah.” Yippee! I hope that constitutes a legal agreement.

Yes, I shall be your Queen!

Apparently the Cumberbabe has been quite keen on Dench playing Queen Elizabeth in the Domenic Cook re-imagining of the play (by the way, ‘re-imagining’ always scares me. I have visions of Richard III dressed in 80’s punk rock. “A mullet, a mullet…my kingdom for a mullet….”)

But Dame Judi didn’t let Cumby off easy…she then made him ‘sing for his supper’, as it were, when she asked him to join her for an excerpt from Twelfth Night as Orsino and Viola.

“But when in other habits you are seen, Orsino’s mistress, and his fancy’s queen.”

That is one lucky Dame! After all…she’s going to get to listen to THIS through month’s of rehearsals….

Lady Anglophile