Dame Judi Dench has revealed she can no longer read scripts due to her suffering from a degenerative condition that can lead to blindness...

Dench has undergone treatment that she hopes will stop the progression of the condition, which her mother also suffered from, and allow her to continue working.

She has just finished Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, a film about pensioners retiring in India, which is released next week and is now filming Skyfall, the latest James Bond film.

Dench said that she learns scripts with the help of friends. "And so somebody comes in and reads them to me, like telling me a story. It's usually my daughter or my agent or a friend and actually I like that, because I sit there and imagine the story in my mind," she told the Mirror.

Macular degeneration is a disease that is common in people over 60 and is caused by the inflammation of part of the retina. Sufferers maintain peripheral vision but the center of their sight is damaged, making watching television and reading difficult.