Judi Dench John Mills, and is president of Questors Theatre, Ealing. In May 2006, she became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (FRSA). She was also patron of Ovingdean Hall School, a special day and boarding school for the deaf and hard of hearing in Brighton, which closed in 2010, and Vice President of The Little Foundation. Dame Judi is also a long-standing and active Vice President of the national disabled people's charity Revitalise. Dench is an Honorary Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge. In 1996, she was awarded a DUniv degree from Surrey University and in 2000–2001, she
Emma Thompson specialises in playing "a good woman in a frock". She also plays many haughty characters, with a "bracing, nanny-like demeanour", but she is noted for her ability to win the empathy of audiences. Thompson belongs to a group of highly decorated British actresses including Judi Dench, Kate Winslet and Helena Bonham Carter who are known for appearing in "heritage films" and typically showing "restraint, rendering emotions through intellect rather than feelings, and a sense of irony, which demonstrates the heroine's superior understanding". Projecting a typically "British image", Thompson's often dogmatic and tight-jawed manner has also been compared to Maggie Smith.