Oscar-winning actress, Dame Helen Mirren, 67, shortly to star in the show in London, The Audience as the Queen, has been awarded a Hollywood Star of Fame.
Helen Mirren will be starring in the new play, The Audience, which is coming to the Gielgud theatre in London’s West End from Friday 15 February 2013, with the opening night scheduled for the 5th March 2013.
The Audience features the Queen’s meetings with a succession of Prime Ministers and explores her relationships with a selection of the twelve Prime Ministers who have served the country from Winston Churchill to David Cameron. The play is about the history of Britain as much as it is about the relationships between Her Majesty and her Prime Ministers. Helen Mirren will be reprising her role as The Queen.
As reported in Woman & Home magazine, Helen said “I believe it’s dangerous to ever go back to a role, and was determined that I wouldn’t play the Queen again. Last year, when I went to the read-through for The Audience, I’d decided I wasn’t going to do it. At the end, I was going to politely say, ‘Thank you, but this isn’t for me.’ But I walked into the room and there was such a brilliant team behind the play, who all wanted me to do it. I realised I’d be a total idiot to walk away from them, so ended up saying the opposite of what I intended to do.”
That creative team behind The Audience who so swayed Helen included writer Peter Morgan, director Stephen Daldry and producers Matthew Byam-Shaw, Robert Fox and Andy Harries.
Helen continued, “The play is based on the private audiences the Queen has with her Prime Ministers. I was so interested how much they all highly value these meetings, and the total trust they have for her. She’s the one person who will not expose anything they say and who can offer advice to them without any sort of agenda. The Queen has seen it all, she’s been right there at so many key moments in history in the past 60 years and has met each of her 12 Prime Ministers weekly. She’s in the most extraordinary position, she’s politically powerless, and yet she has a powerful role to play. That is a fascinating subject.”
Helen admits that even after four decades of treading the boards in the theatre she still suffers from stage fright. Not every night, but at the beginning and on the odd occasion.
Initially tickets will be on sale only for a limited period only as the show in London is only scheduled to run at the Gielgud theatre until 15th June 2013.
