Judi Dench, 91, says macular degeneration means she can no longer act or read

Dame Judi Dench, 91, says her sight loss now stops her acting on stage or in films and from reading. "I can't be on stage. I can't do a play anymore. I can't do a film anymore. I can't read anymore," she told Emma Barnett on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC News reported on Thursday 22 October.

The Oscar winner, known to millions in Pakistan as "M" in the James Bond films, was diagnosed with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) in 2012. The condition affects central vision, and she said it now makes it hard even to recognise faces: she sometimes walks up to the wrong person and gives them "an almost hug" before realising her mistake.

A career of more than seven decades

Dench is one of Britain's most celebrated actors, with work across theatre, television and film.

• She won the Academy Award for best supporting actress in 1999 for playing Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love.
• She became the first woman to play M, James Bond's boss, starting with GoldenEye in 1995.
• She has spoken before about struggling to see on film sets and finding it hard to learn scripts as her sight worsened.

Asked about getting older, she said: "There's nothing to say for it at all. [I] don't think about it too much." Asked who should be the next Bond, she simply said "no".

Still talking, on the radio

She has kept making public appearances and said that "the radio has always been important to me". In the interview she recalled a lunch invitation from the former MI6 chief Sir David Spedding, for which she arrived about 20 minutes late because the driver sent to fetch her could not find her house, and the night Sidney Poitier, the first Black man to win the best actor Oscar, came backstage to see her in Amy's View in New York.

What AMD is

Macular degeneration damages the macula, the part of the retina used for sharp, central vision such as reading and recognising faces, and it is a common cause of serious sight loss in older people. It usually leaves side vision intact. Anyone over 50 who notices straight lines looking wavy, or a blurred patch in the middle of what they see, should have an eye test; government teaching hospitals in every big city run eye outpatient departments, and you can find private clinics through our hospitals directory.