DAME Judi Dench has disclosed how poor teaching while she was at school in York nearly put her off Shakespeare for life.

The Oscar-winning actress, who attended The Mount School between 1945 and 1953, told a national newspaper she was put off one of Shakespeare's most-studied plays, The Merchant of Venice, after being made to recite it in school, saying it had "completely ruined" the work for life.

She said: “I remember having to read in a class and them saying you have to read six lines each. Six lines each of the ghastly Merchant of Venice, regardless of who was saying them. It made it a complete nonsense. I never liked the play and I should never have played Portia – there, I’ve said it. It ruined the play for me, completely ruined the play.”

Of how to teach it properly, she added: “But if you say to a child, have you fallen in love with somebody or know what the feeling of love is? Or have you ever envied somebody or something, a toy? Have you ever got really angry about something? That’s what Shakespeare’s about, all of those things. He says it better than anybody else.”

The current principal at The Mount, Julie Lodrick, said that thankfully, approaches to teaching have changed dramatically since Dame Judi's student days.

She said: "Teaching young ones speech and drama at The Mount seems to have much improved since Dame Judi’s day. In fact, both this year and in 2012 our Junior School students achieved 100 per cent distinctions in their external examinations with the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

"At the time, LAMDA’s head of examinations, Guy Norris, said: "To pass a LAMDA examination is a significant achievement for any learner. For every candidate in a school to achieve a Distinction is a remarkable achievement. I congratulate all the learners at The Mount Junior School, their teachers and their supportive parents on a superb result.

"In the Senior School, for the past two years running, a Mount student has won the regional Poetry By Heart competition, which was spearheaded by former Poet Laureate Andrew Motion, and gone on to compete in the National Finals representing this region."

The school still has photographs of Dame Judi's performances as an angel in the Mystery Plays in the Museum Gardens in 1951 and as Titania in the school production of a Midsummer Night's Dream in 1953. Dame Judi, 79, won a best supporting actress Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare In Love.

University Of York Music Department in The Threepenny Opera, Sir Jack Lyons Concert Hall, University, tonight at 7.30pm. Box office: 01904 322439 or boxoffice@york.ac.uk