London, Oct 13 : Oscar winner Dame Judi Dench believes that young actors want quick fame and do not learn from their seniors in theatre.

Speaking at the Times Cheltenham Literature Festival, the 74-year-old Dench criticised the new generation of actors for taking little interest in theatre.

Times Online quoted her as recalling her theatre days: “I never used to go to my dressing room. We used to always stand in the wings and watch other people.”

“Probably the majority of young actors want to make a big impression in television or film straight away. I wish that young people now — and it’s not very fashionable — learnt a bit about our fantastic heritage of theatre and the people who’ve gone before, learnt a bit about the history of the theatre, because it’s phenomenal. It is nowhere better in the world than here.

“We have such a huge history of the most extraordinary performances and productions and directors and actors and designers, everything that I wish wasn’t forgotten. It is not forgotten by a lot of people but it is forgotten by most young people coming up. There’s always something to learn. It’s so exciting to read about the history of other people in the part,” she added.

Sir Richard Eyre, who directed Iris and Notes on a Scandal featuring Dench supported her and said: “It’s an inherent problem because if you are a certain age you can’t have seen people like Olivier. There used to be more word of mouth passed down from generation to generation. There was a curiosity about the previous generation. There’s more preoccupation with the present than in the past. It’s a shame in an art form which relies on memory.”

However, young British director Rupert Goold disagreed with her and said it was hard to experiment and do new things in theatre because “most of the audience is middle-aged, the critics are all middle-aged” and it often looks like “you are seeking to win the approval of your parents all the time”.

He believed this might result in a caution that “strangles theatre [and] having a senior actor saying things like that could further strangle it.”

Goold, also felt the new generation of actors were much less interested in alcohol and more professional in many ways.

He said: “They are less deferential in a good way than I gather was the case 40 years ago…. They are physically much better. And Tim Piggott-Smith, who is in Enron [the new play Goold is directing at the Royal Court], was amazed at how much more technically proficient they are.” (ANI)