For sixty years, Queen Elizabeth II has met with each of her twelve Prime Ministers in a private weekly meeting. This meeting is known as The Audience. No one knows what they discuss, not even their spouses. Academy Award winner Helen Mirren returns to Broadway, and the throne, in a riveting new play by Peter Morgan, the writer of the Academy Award-nominated film, The Queen. Directed by two-time Tony Award winner Stephen Daldry (Billy Elliot, An Inspector Calls), THE AUDIENCE takes theatregoers behind the walls of Buckingham Palace and into the private chambers of Queen Elizabeth II as she meets with each of her Prime Ministers, from when she was a young mother to now as a Great Grandmother. From the old warrior Winston Churchill, to the Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher, through the charm offensive of Tony Blair right up to today's meetings with the current incumbent David Cameron, the Queen advises her Prime Ministers on all matters both public and personal. Through these private audiences, we see glimpses of the woman behind the crown and witness the moments that shaped a monarch. You cannot miss the performance that had London on its feet: Helen Mirren in THE AUDIENCE.
Helen Mirren is so good as Queen Elizabeth II in 'The Audience' that the star of stage, film and TV never needs to worry about a scene being stolen from her. Effortlessly and consistently commanding and composed, Mirren can't be upstaged. She's the jewel in this crown. Still, her portrait never quite ascends to that elusive level of transcendence - or indelibility... Don't blame Dame Helen. The Broadway star vehicle she's driving lacks the high-octane fuel to take her there, even though it's stylishly directed by Stephen Daldry and eloquently designed by Bob Crowley.
Aside from giving the redoubtable Helen Mirren another chance to essay Queen Elizabeth II - a necessarily reclusive character with whom this actress is now so closely allied that the two verge on a coalition, with Mirren doing all the talking - Peter Morgan's 'The Audience' succeeds because it intuits the heavy price a monarch must pay in a constitutional democracy... Daldry, like Morgan, knows how to mix the serious and the flashily theatrical, and thus 'The Audience' is neither dull nor dry... It's a coup de theater of the old school, and watching Mirren seem to peel off years and cares is nothing short of a dazzling experience.
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