There’s nothing like a dame. Or two. When Richard Hanlon, an Englishman abroad in Rajasthan, India, saw The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, starring Dames Judi Dench and Maggie Smith, he thought that if he built it, everyone would come. And they have.
Hanlon met the actors while they were filming. Invited to celebrate Diwali, the Indian festival of light, by the Maharana of Udaipur, the cast, including Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Penelope Wilton, Ronald Pickup, and the Great Dames, sailed across Lake Pichola in the royal barge to the 16th-century city palace in Udaipur, where Hanlon was staying. “The mounted horses were all out in full regalia, and the royal band was playing ‘Scotland the Brave,’” says Hanlon. “Everyone was in tears at the magnificence of it all, and Judi and Maggie presented a tot of rum to the bandleader.”
