Dame Judi Dench has revealed she can no longer leave her house alone due to her deteriorating eyesight.

The 90-year-old actress has macular degeneration, a condition which leads to a gradual loss of vision.

In a new interview on Trinny Woodall’s Fearless podcast, Dame Judi says “somebody will always be with me” when she leaves the house.

“I have to [have someone] now because I can’t see,” she continues. “And I will walk into something or fall over.”

Reflecting on how she used to feel about attending events alone, Dame Judi said she was “no good at that at all”.

“And fortunately, I don’t have to be [alone] now because I pretend now to have no eyesight,” she laughs.

In July 2023, Dame Judi said she was determined to work “as much as I can” despite her health issues.

“I mean, I can’t see on a film set anymore,” she told The Mirror’s Notebook magazine. “And I can’t see to read. So I can’t see much. But, you know, you just deal with it. Get on.”

Dame Judi’s acting career began in the 1950s when she made her stage debut in a production of Hamlet at London’s Old Vic theatre.

In the decades since, she’s conquered the worlds of TV and film, winning an Oscar for her role in the 1998 movie Shakespeare In Love and, more recently, playing the head of MI6, M, alongside Daniel Craig’s James Bond.

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Dame Judi has also cemented herself as one of the UK’s best stage actresses, winning a string of Olivier awards for starring roles in plays including The Winter’s Tale and Macbeth.

Her most recent screen credit was in 2022, for a small role in Christmas film Spirited. She has continued to make public appearances and last October, she was a speaker at the Cheltenham Literary Festival.

From the sampled vocals of Mel & Kim to the instantly memorable lyrics of Rick Astley’s biggest hits, Stock, Aitken and Waterman’s songs ruled the UK charts in the late 1980s.

With a blue plaque being installed on the side of the Bermondsey building that housed their “hit factory”, the trio spoke to Sky News about spotting Kylie’s “spark” and claiming they “invented” AI.

At their peak in 1989, Mike Stock, Matt Aitken and Pete Waterman songs made up a whopping 27% of the UK singles market.

It remains one of the most successful partnerships in the history of pop.

Waterman admits feeling “knocked out” by the 40 or so crowd that came to watch them receive the honour – including 1980s artists Brother Beyond, former staff who worked on their records, and fans.

“These are some of the kids that every day used to be here after school wanting autographs. Of course, they’re all grown up now!” laughs Waterman.

The partnership produced countless hits for some of the biggest stars at the time.

“We had a method of working, we tried to taper the songs to how we thought the public would perceive the artist and we were quite successful in that regard,” says Matt Aitken.

Waterman adds: “If it didn’t work, we didn’t bother.”

In 1988, their success went into overdrive thanks to a collaboration with a young Australian soap actress called Kylie Minogue who they hadn’t even heard of at the time.

“When she arrived at the studio we were unaware that she was even turning up,” Mike Stock explains. “So we had to come up with a song pretty quick.”

They wrote her 1987 debut hit I Should Be So Lucky in just 20 minutes.

“She was a great deliverer of a song,” Aitken says.

“When she was sat in a corner you wouldn’t know she was there but the minute a camera went on… she sparked,” adds Pete Waterman.

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Back in the day most of their hits were recorded on a simple 24-track tape machine but now, with advances in AI software, songs can be produced in an instant.

So how do the trio feel about artificial intelligence being the new “hit factory”?

“AI? We invented it!” jokes Waterman.

“You’ve got to incorporate influences from the past but… the difference between AI and what we did [is] we had emotion,” he says.

“We fought over songs if a lyric didn’t work. It doesn’t work without emotion.”

Netflix is raising prices for some subscribers as it reported 18.9 million new customers in the last three months of 2024.

Prices will rise for users in the United States, Canada, Portugal and Argentina. Netflix has not confirmed if the UK will see any similar price increases.

In the United States a standard monthly plan with adverts will rise to $7.99 (£6.49), a standard plan without ads will increase to $17.99 (£14.60) and a premium plan has gone up to $22.99 (£18.66).

The price in the UK currently stands at £4.99 for a standard monthly plan with adverts, £10.99 for standard without ads, and £17.99 for a premium account.

Netflix ended last year with more than 300 million subscribers – an increase of 41 million from 2023. This eclipsed its previous best year, 2020, which saw it add 36.6 million subscribers as pandemic lockdowns saw people turn to the streaming giant for entertainment.

After it announced the increase in users, Netflix’s shares surged by 14%.

The increase in numbers is widely credited to Netflix’s streaming of a fight between YouTube sensation Jake Paul and former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson, as well as two National Football League games on Christmas Day.

Forrester Research analyst Mike Proulx says live programming is quickly becoming Netflix’s “secret ingredient” that is helping to widen its lead over its streaming rivals.

“With more choice in programming than ever before, streaming services need to differentiate,” Proulx said. “FOMO (fear of missing out) is a powerful tool in piquing interest and creating stickiness.”

In the final three months of 2024, Netflix earned $1.9bn, or $4.27 per share, nearly doubling from the same time in 2023.

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Netflix appears confident the price increases will not trigger a backlash resulting in mass cancellations.

“When you’re going to ask for a price increase, you better make sure you have the goods and the engagement to back it up,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said during a conference call with analysts.

Netflix has been contacted for comment.