Dame Judi Dench's eyesight is so bad that she can't watch TV or stage shows

Speaking at the Theatre Royal, Bury St Edmunds - of which she is patron - she said: "I can't see any more.

"When I go to the theatre, I can't see. Hopeless."

She has even struggled with television, and admitted she hasn't been able to actually see her friend Dame Celia Imrie on the BBC's Celebrity Traitors series.

However, she added: "Somebody told me what was happening. I want to hear the dirt that went on."

Dame Judi first revealed in 2012 she is suffering with macular degeneration in her eyes, and in January the veteran actress gave a bleak update on her condition.

In an episode of Trinny Woodall's Fearless podcast, she explained: "Somebody will always be with me. I have to now because I can't see and I will walk into something or fall over.

"I'm always nervous before going to something.

"I have no idea why... I'm not good at being on my own at all, nor would I be now. And fortunately, I don't have to now because I pretend to have no eyesight."

During a 2021 event for the London-based Vision Foundation, Judi opened up about how she has been battling to read scripts due to her rapidly fading vision.

She said: "You find a way of just getting about and getting over the things that you find very difficult.

"I've had to find another way of learning lines and things, which is having great friends of mine repeat them to me over and over and over again.

"So I have to learn through repetition, and I just hope that people won't notice too much if all the lines are completely hopeless!"