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
Judi Dench for Measure". She subsequently spent seasons in repertory both with the Playhouse in Nottingham from January 1963, (including a West African tour as Lady Macbeth for the British Council) and with the Playhouse Company in Oxford from April 1964. In 1964, Dench appeared on television as Valentine Wannop in Theatre 625's adaptation of Parade's End, shown in three episodes. That same year, she made her film debut in "The Third Secret", before featuring in a small role in the Sherlock Holmes thriller "A Study in Terror" (1965) with her Nottingham Playhouse colleague John Neville. She performed again on BBC's Theatre