Judi Dench Dench commented that the project launched her Hollywood career and joked that "it was thanks to Harvey, whose name I have had tattooed on my bum". Dench's other film of 1997 was Roger Spottiswoode's "Tomorrow Never Dies", her second film in the "James Bond" series. The same year, Dench reteamed with director John Madden to film "Shakespeare in Love" (1998), a romantic comedy-drama that depicts a love affair involving playwright William Shakespeare, played by Joseph Fiennes, while he was writing the play "Romeo and Juliet". On her performance as Queen Elizabeth I, "The New York Times" commented that "Dench's shrewd,
Rodney Ackland in the 1980s, while ailing with leukaemia, Rodney Ackland rewrote aspects of this play, re-titling it "Absolute Hell". It was put on in its new form in 1988 to considerable success at the Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond-upon-Thames, directed by Sam Walters and John Gardyne, and starring Polly Hemingway and David Rintoul. In 1991 it was adapted and directed for BBC Television by Anthony Page, starring Dame Judi Dench, and the play was revived by Page at the Royal National Theatre in 1995, again with Dench in the leading role. See also Nick Smurthwaite's theatre profile of Ackland for The Stage,