Stephen Daldry is to direct Helen Mirren in the world premiere of Peter Morgan’s The Audience. The Audience will preview at the Gielgud Theatre from 15 February 2013, with press night on 5 March 2013 at 7pm and is currently booking to 15 June 2013. Designs are by Bob Crowley and sound is by Paul Arditti. Further casting will be announced shortly.
For sixty years Elizabeth II has met each of her twelve Prime Ministers in a weekly audience at Buckingham Palace - a meeting like no other in British public life – it is private. Both parties have an unspoken agreement never to repeat what is said. Not even to their spouses.
The Audience breaks this contract of silence - and imagines a series of pivotal meetings between the Downing Street incumbents and their Queen. From Churchill to Cameron, each Prime Minister has used these private conversations as a sounding board and a confessional - sometimes intimate, sometimes explosive. In turn, the Queen can’t help but reveal her own self as she advises, consoles and, on occasion, teases.
From young mother to grandmother these private audiences chart the arc of the second Elizabethan Age. Politicians come and go through the revolving door of electoral politics, while she remains constant, waiting to welcome her next Prime Minister.
CAST
- Queen Elizabeth II - Helen Mirren
Sir Anthony Eden - Michael Elwyn
Margaret Thatcher - Haydn Gwynne
Winston Churchill - Robert Hardy
Harold Wilson - Robert McCabe
Gordon Brown - Nathaniel Parker
John Major - Paul Ritter
David Cameron - Rufus Wright
Equerry - Geoffrey Beevers
Young Elizabeth - Bebe Cave, Maya Gerber, Nell Williams