About
The Audience:
The Audience plays at Gielgud Theatre
35-37 Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D 6AR
- Map
Seating chart & directions
Helen Mirren stars once more as Queen Elizabeth II in the world premiere of Peter Morgan's The Audience at the Gielgud Theatre, directed by Stephen Daldry.
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.
Designs by Bob Crowley, Sound is by Paul Arditti.
Previews schedule to begin Feberuary 15, 2013.
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