Dame Judi Dench’s sight loss battle: ‘I can’t see on a film set anymore!’

Dame Judi Dench’s sight loss condition has grown so severe can no longer see on film sets.

The 88-year-old actress has previously opened up about having age-related macular degeneration, which causes a gradual loss of vision, and has now admitted it has deteriorated so much she can’t read scripts.

She told the Sunday Mirror’s Notebook magazine: “I can’t see on a film set any more. And I can't see to read. But you just deal with it.

“It’s difficult if I have any length of a part. I haven’t yet found a way. Because I have so many friends who will teach me the script. But I have a photographic memory.”

Judi had previously revealed that she had to stop driving because of the condition but insists is not allowing her eyesight to hold her back.

She has continued to appear in films in recent years, including Sir Kenneth Branagh’s Oscar-winning ‘Belfast’.

Judi said: “I have an irrational fear of boredom. That’s why I now have this tattoo that says carpe diem. That’s what we should live by.”

Age-related macular degeneration affects the middle part of a person's vision and is common among those in their fifties and sixties.

It does not cause total blindness but can make everyday activities such as reading and recognising people’s faces difficult.

Judi lives in the Surrey home she bought 40 years ago with her actor husband, Michael Williams, who died in 2001 from lung cancer aged 65,

Judi had said she “never expected, not for a minute, that there would be anybody else in my life”.

But she married her current husband David Mills in 2010 and said: “I’ve had many, many good friends, but it’s been very unexpected to have somebody who is as caring as my partner, David – someone to be able to share things with... I feel very lucky indeed.

“And to laugh with somebody is terrible important. We laugh about everything.”