''The Audience'' is a play by the British playwright and screenwriter

Peter Morgan Peter Julian Robin Morgan, (10 April 1963) is a British screenwriter and playwright. He is the playwright behind '' The Audience'' and '' Frost/Nixon'' and the screenwriter of ''The Queen'' (2006), '' Frost/Nixon'' (2008), ''The Damned United ...

. The play centres on weekly meetings, called audiences, between

Queen Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until Death and state funeral of Elizabeth II, her death in 2022. She was queen ...

, originally played by

Helen Mirren Dame Helen Mirren (born Helen Lydia Mironoff; born 26 July 1945) is an English actor. The recipient of numerous accolades, she is the only performer to have achieved the Triple Crown of Acting in both the United States and the United Kingdom. ...

, and her prime ministers. It 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

Kristin Scott Thomas Dame Kristin Ann Scott Thomas (born 24 May 1960) is a British actress who also holds French citizenship. A five-time British Academy Film Awards, BAFTA Award and Laurence Olivier Award, Olivier Award nominee, she won the BAFTA Award for Best ...

in the lead role.

Overview

''The Audience'' is centred on the weekly audiences given by

to prime ministers from her accession in 1952 to the present day. Three prime ministers are omitted from the play;

Harold Macmillan Maurice Harold Macmillan, 1st Earl of Stockton, (10 February 1894 – 29 December 1986) was a British Conservative statesman and politician who was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1957 to 1963. Caricatured as "Supermac", he ...

, 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 Leonard James Callaghan, Baron Callaghan of Cardiff, ( ; 27 March 191226 March 2005), commonly known as Jim Callaghan, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1976 to 1979 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1976 to 1980. Callaghan is ...

who was excluded from subsequent productions. Advice regarding the political and historical content of the weekly audiences was provided by Professor

Vernon Bogdanor Vernon Bernard Bogdanor (; born 16 July 1943) is a British political scientist and historian, research professor at the Institute for Contemporary British History at King's College London and professor of politics at the New College of the Hu ...

(Emeritus Professor of Government at Oxford University), the former tutor of

David Cameron David William Donald Cameron (born 9 October 1966) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He previously served as Leader o ...

, prime minister from 2010 until 2016.

Production history

''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

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 costume design by Bob Crowley, lighting design by Rick Fisher, sound by

Paul Arditti Paul Arditti is a British sound designer, working mainly in the UK and the US. He specialises in designing sound systems and sound scores for theatre. He has won awards for his work on both musicals and plays, including a Tony Award, an Olivier Aw ...

, 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. Following the death of former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who is featured during the play's run, Morgan made a speech to the audience to mark her passing. Subsequently, a reference to the late prime minister's death and the Queen's attendance at her funeral was added as a part of the Queen's dialogue with David Cameron. The production was broadcast live to cinemas as part of National Theatre Live on 13 June 2013. The initial broadcast broke the record for most people watching a production live since the scheme began, with nearly 80,000 people watching in the UK and 30,000 people in North America. Further encore screenings were later broadcast. The play began a limited Broadway engagement from 8 March to 28 June 2015, at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, with previews from 14 February 2015. Helen Mirren reprised her role of Queen Elizabeth II in this production, alongside fellow original cast members Geoffrey Beevers, Michael Elwyn, Richard McCabe and Rufus Wright. A West End revival began at the Apollo Theatre, opening on 5 May 2015, following previews from 21 April 2015, with

Dame ''Dame'' is an honorific title and the feminine form of address for the honour of damehood in many Christian chivalric orders, as well as the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British honours system and those of several oth ...

as Queen Elizabeth II. For the 2015 production, the role of James Callaghan was removed to allow them to feature former prime minister Tony Blair, and the script was updated pending a general election. Following the election on 7 May 2015, the scene featuring

meeting the Queen was updated to show Cameron had won a second term and showed the Queen asking him to form a government. The audience between Cameron and the Queen was changed several times over the 15-week run in the West End to keep up to date with current political events. After the general election results, references were made to

Nicola Sturgeon Nicola Ferguson Sturgeon (born 19 July 1970) is a Scottish politician serving as First Minister of Scotland and Leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP) since 2014. She is the first woman to hold either position. She has been a member of ...

and the success of the

Scottish National Party The Scottish National Party (SNP; sco, Scots National Pairty, gd, Pàrtaidh Nàiseanta na h-Alba ) is a Scottish nationalist and social democratic political party in Scotland. The SNP supports and campaigns for Scottish independence from ...

winning seats from the Labour Party. Other current events references made during the audience scene between the Queen and Cameron included the corruption scandal at FIFA and the Greek bailout debate known as "

Grexit A Greek withdrawal from the eurozone was a hypothetical scenario, debated mostly in the early to mid 2010s, under which Greece would withdraw from the Eurozone to deal with the Greek government-debt crisis of the time. This conjecture was give ...

". During the last week of the run, a reference was made to newspaper articles displaying the Queen apparently making a Nazi salute in her youth and to the birthday of Prince George. In May 2017, the play received its Russian premiere in Moscow and starred Inna Churikova as the Queen, along with

Mikhail Gorevoy Mikhail Vitalievich Gorevoy (russian: Михаи́л Вита́льевич Горево́й; born 19 May 1965) is a Russian actor, occasionally credited as Michael Gor in English language productions, best known internationally for playing Vlad ...

as Winston Churchill and Galina Tunina as Margaret Thatcher. Fiona Reid assumed the role of the Queen in the 2017 Mirvish Productions mounting of the play at Toronto's Royal Alexandra Theatre."Fiona Reid brings charm and humour to Queen Elizabeth II in The Audience: review"
''

Toronto Star The ''Toronto Star'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet daily newspaper. The newspaper is the country's largest daily newspaper by circulation. It is owned by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary of Torstar Corporation and part ...

'', January 20, 2017. The Toronto cast included Paul Essiembre as Eden, Kate Hennig as Thatcher, Benedict Campbell as Brown, Kevin Klassen as Blair and

Ben Carlson Ben Carlson is a Canadian actor.

as Cameron.

In popular culture

The 'Traviata' model handbag by British designer

Launer London Launer London is a British manufacturer of luxury handbags and other small leather goods founded in 1940 by Sam Launer, who emigrated to London from Czechoslovakia during the Second World War. The company first sold a handbag to a member of the B ...

received a surge in popularity and was subsequently re-issued by the brand following the use of one as a prop in ''The Audience'' both in the West End and on Broadway. It is the style often used by Queen Elizabeth II. Specific episodes of the Netflix series ''The Crown'', created by Peter Morgan, acknowledge inspiration from ''The Audience'', produced by Playful productions LLP, Robert Fox LTD and Andy Harries. The play is cited in the credits of the first, fifth and eighth episodes of season 1, the third and eighth episodes of season 2, the second and ninth episode of season 3, and the second, fifth, and tenth episode of season 4.

Principal roles and original cast

; Notes * Robert Hardy withdrew from the role of Churchill before press night in the original West End production for health reasons.

Awards and honours

Original West End Production

Original Broadway Production

References

External links