Dame Judi had just finished a relationship with Leonard Rossiter and Mr Williams was single

Dame Judi had just finished a relationship with Leonard Rossiter and Mr Williams was single.Despite the length of their marriage, they still indulge in romantic gestures. They are united by, among other things, religious faith; Mr Williams is a devout Roman Catholic and Dame Judi, a devout Quaker.They married in their mid-30s, after meeting nine years earlier over a cup of tea. He has played all of the major Shakespearean roles, and worked with directors including Peter Hall and Peter Brook.Mr Williams co-starred with Dame Judi in the Eighties hit television series A Fine Romance, and they also appeared together in the West End play Mr and Mrs Nobody. She said in a statement yesterday: "I am devastated to disappoint anyone who came to see me, but because of the circumstances I am unable to perform."The National Theatre in London, where Mr Williams performed in Russian playwright Alexander Ostrovsky's The Forest earlier this year, confirmed that he was ill and said Dame Judi's date of return to New York was uncertain.Genista McIntosh, the theatre's executive director, said: "Everyone at the National was very sorry to hear Michael was ill and that Judi has had to come back. Dame Judi, whose marriage to fellow actor Mr Williams is one of the closest and most enduring in showbusiness, abandoned her starring role as the ageing actress Esme Allen in Amy's View to return to England. She was anxious to be at her husband's bedside after he was diagnosed with the illness, an inflammation of the lungs that is not generally life- threatening.Dame Judi, who won the Tony for her portrayal of Esme, missed Wednesday night's performance and flew home on Thursday. DAME JUDI Dench has pulled out of the Broadway show that earned her a Tony Award earlier this month and flown home from New York to be with her husband, Michael Williams, who is in hospital with pleurisy.

"At the neighbourhood office people come into contact with tenants. They wouldn't be there unless they were disgruntled about something and this ranged from those who were normally demanding, to those who were extremely demanding and downright rude."The nature of the work was so different that she had difficulty coping," he said.Mrs Lancaster suffered illness resulting in absences and she finally retired on grounds of ill health in February 1997.Assistant Recorder Frances Kirkham QC yesterday reserved judgment in the case and adjourned the matter until a date to be fixed.Mrs Lancaster stands to receive a six-figure sum of compensation from the local authority.. Her job was abolished and she was transferred to a job in the housing department for which she had no training, the court was told.Her counsel, Kevin O'Donovan, said the job in the housing office was very different to her previous posts. I can't handle two things at once, as I always could," she said.Mrs Lancaster began work at the council as a 16-year-old clerk and was promoted to the drawing office. Eventually she became a senior draughtswoman in charge of 10 staff. It was now difficult for her to perform two tasks at the same time. "If I am just answering the phone I can cope, but if I am doing work on the computer and the telephone rings, I go into a state of panic.

Shesaid she had tried to rebuild her life by undertaking part-time voluntary work, but found even the most basic jobs daunting. In a landmark hearing, Birmingham City Council admitted liability for personal injury to Beverley Lancaster, 43, caused by stress at work. Mrs Lancaster, a senior draughtswoman, who was switched from her backroom job to a front-line post dealing with irate council tenants, suffered panic attacks and bouts of clinical depression.Dr Alfred White, a consultant psychiatrist, told Birmingham County Court that Mrs Lancaster's "fastidious, meticulous and obsessive" personality had meant she was at a considerable disadvantage at the sharp end of local authority work.Mrs Lancaster wept as she told the court that the pressure of working in the Sutton Coldfield neighbourhood housing office had destroyed her confidence and ability to carry out the most mundane duties. "I will hold on to it until it has shrunk to nothing," he said.. Knife boy's expulsion 'reasonable' A HEAD acted "reasonably" when he expelled a 12-year-old pupil who took a knife to school and threatened to kill himself if he was bullied, the High Court in London ruled yesterday. An application by the boy's lawyers for judicial review of the expulsion in Caterham, Surrey, was rejected.. His plans for the future, he said, are still hazy though he thinks he might write a book.And he has no intention of selling his half of Viz.

In the early days, I would get out of bed almost every night and put a light on and write an idea down. I burnt myself out."His passion for Viz is still obvious as he reminisces about the moment it overtook Private Eye in the circulation war. The magazine, which now has a circulation of 300,000, reached 1.25 million copies and was valued at pounds 10m at its peak.Now aged 39, he says he is "completely out of touch with yoof culture". But his collaborators - his brother Simon, Grahame Dury, Simon Thorp and Davy Jones - were reluctant to tamper with his "train set" in his presence so he bowed out gracefully.He insisted yesterday that nothing more sinister than boredom had led to his departure "I stopped having ideas. "I went Awol last Christmas, believing they would never be able to edit the magazine without me - they managed perfectly well."Eventually, he agreed with his publisher, John Brown, that he would remain at the helm for another year. You might as well kill yourself," he said. It is perhaps a fitting parall-el for Viz, the anarchic magazine which became so successful it lost the rebellious image which put it at the top.Mr Donald had been trying to tear himself away from Sid the Sexist and the Fat Slags for two years.

If you do, all you have left is driving the trains around which is soul destroying. No longer the "bitter and cynical" 19-year-old who tapped into the discontent of his generation, Mr Donald is bored with his creation. Yesterday he was happily building a train set in a bedroom of the Victorian home he shares with his wife and three children "It is an ongoing project You never finish a model railway. TWENTY YEARS after he first started selling his home-made comics around the pubs of Newcastle, Chris Donald, the founder and editor of Viz, has handed over the reins. There, in the Chapel of St Gregory and St Augustine, at the back of the cathedral of which he had been so reluctant an archbishop, George Basil Hume, monk, was interred Requiescat in pace.Leading article,Review, page 3. The words are the same as those used by a young monk as he makes his first vows at the start of his life in service to God: "Receive me Lord, according to thy word."As the Latin faded away, the coffin was carried down the aisle as the choir sang In Paradisum from the Faure Requiem. But then the curtain came down, and it was back to the darkness of faith.