The Audience (2013 play)
| The Audience | |
|---|---|
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| Written by | Peter Morgan |
| Date premiered | 15 February 2013 |
| Place premiered |
Gielgud Theatre London |
| Original language | English |
| Setting | Buckingham Palace Balmoral Castle |
The Audience is a play by the British playwright and screenwriter Peter Morgan. The play centres on weekly meetings, called audiences, between Queen Elizabeth II, played by Dame Helen Mirren, and her prime ministers and premiered in the West End in 2013, at the Gielgud Theatre. A Broadway production opened in 2015, also starring Mirren. A West End revival played in London in 2015 starring Dame Kristin Scott Thomas in the lead role.
The Audience is centred on the weekly audiences given by Queen Elizabeth II to prime ministers from her accession in 1952 to the present day. Three Prime Ministers are omitted from the play; Harold Macmillan, Sir Alec Douglas Home and Edward Heath are not featured. Tony Blair originally did not feature in the play, but was added when the play transferred to Broadway, replacing James Callaghan who was excluded from subsequent productions. Advice regarding the political and historical content of the weekly audiences was provided by Professor Vernon Bogdanor (Emeritus Professor of Government at Oxford University) the former Tutor of David Cameron, Prime Minister from 2010 until 2016.
The Audience is written by British playwright and screenwriter Peter Morgan. Its premiere production opened in the West End at the Gielgud Theatre on 15 February 2013, with its press night on 5 March. The play featured Dame Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II; the actress had played the same role in the 2006 film The Queen, which was also written by Morgan. The play was directed by Stephen Daldry, with design by Bob Crowley, lighting design by Rick Fisher, sound by Paul Arditti, music by Paul Englishby and video design by Ian William Galloway. A typical West End performance ran two hours and 30 minutes, including one interval.
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