Judi Dench regular contact with the theatre. Her father, a physician, was also the GP for the York theatre, and her mother was its wardrobe mistress. Actors often stayed in the Dench household. During these years, Judi Dench was involved on a non-professional basis in the first three productions of the modern revival of the York Mystery Plays in 1951, 1954 and 1957. In the third production she played the role of the Virgin Mary, performed on a fixed stage in the Museum Gardens. Though she initially trained as a set designer, she became interested in drama school as her brother Jeff
Rikki Chamberlain enforced an eighteen-month break in his dancing career, he decided to undertake a training in acting to which he has often said he felt "better suited than being a dancer". This led to a BA (HONS) in Performing Arts at Cumbria Institute of the Arts and then a Post Graduate diploma from Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London, where he won the Dame Judi Dench scholarship to help with the cost of training. Rikki Chamberlain Rikki David James Chamberlain (; born July 1973 in Aldershot, Hampshire, England) is a British actor best known for playing Samson in CITV's Captain