Dame Judi Dench’s dress will be sold off today as part of the Rose Theatre’s fifth birthday celebrations.

The Rose Theatre will celebrate its fifth birthday at a later date with a party for volunteers and financial supporters.

But tonight a private auction will auction off the dress worn by the James Bond star in her best-selling turn as Titania for Sir Peter Hall from February 2010.

A spokesman for the Rose said: “We’re having a fifth birthday party with an auction raising funds by selling memorabilia and signed items - Judi Dench’s dress from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“We have been keeping it in good condition for the last two or three years. We have got to go to Bentalls as they are lending us a dress maker’s dummy.

“The office is littered with various signed things from the past five years of shows.”

The theatre opened on January 16, 2008, after years of fundraising by the Kingston community.