THOSE working to bring back York's Mystery Plays, be warned. It's not all glamour.

The greatest graduate of this unique artistic endeavour, Dame Judi Dench, has an uncomfortable memory of her early exposures to open air theatre.

She appeared in three versions of the plays in the 1950s. While her debut appearance was "terribly exciting", Dame Judi's angelic role the next time round was less than heavenly.

"I played the angel sitting at the door of the tomb in white clothing," she recalled. "Henzie Raeburn, E Martin Browne's wife, refused to let me have anything to sit on, so I had to crouch for a long time."

After bravely enduring thespian cramp, the young Miss Dench decided to be a theatrical set designer and went off to art school.

But being cast centre stage as the Virgin Mary in the 1957 plays set her on the road to fame and Oscars.

These memories are included in a new book Judi Dench: Scenes From My Life (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, £20). In it, she also recalls childhood in York. "When I was a child, going to bed early in the summer was agony for me. I have such a vivid memory of hearing the boys playing cricket outside in the garden, then running up and downstairs because somebody'd forgotten something and had to fetch it...

"I don't want to be part of the action necessarily, but I don't want to miss anything."

One thing she did miss was a television show she made about her home town.

"I was making a TV film about York, where I was born. I took Finty her daughter to my school, and the Shambles, and the Minster.

"The film was called Judi Dench Looks At York or some such title. I have never actually seen it."

As for the future, "my eldest brother, Peter, is always trying to persuade me of the joys of retirement, but that plays no part in any of my future plans...

"I want to do something different next, and preferably something dangerous."

Will Dame Judi be York's next daredevil contestant in the jungle?

TALKING of which, Tommy Cannon left the show with a bitter taste in his mouth. The beans.

He revealed to the I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here website that he downed a whisky and coke soon after being evicted from the camp to banish the memories.

"I've lost a stone in weight," he said. "It's the beans. They are totally, totally disgusting. They're just like bullets."

Earlier the York dog kennel owner confessed to an unfortunate medical mix-up. He told fellow contestants how he went in for a hernia operation when he was six years old - and was mistakenly circumcised instead.

I'm A Celebrity addicts, meanwhile, have smelled a rat over Tommy's eviction. Was it a fix?

"There is no way in this world that the British public would have voted for such a genuine, decent guy as opposed to the bland sour faced Kimberley and possibly even David Dickinson," said one.

And another exasperated viewer demanded: "I so want Jilly Goolden out of the camp NOW!! Put Tommy Cannon back in and get that patronising woman out."

Updated: 09:14 Tuesday, November 29, 2005