Helen Mirren heading to America with The Audience (EXPRESS)

DAME HELEN MIRREN is set to thrill her American fans with her portrayal of QUEEN ELIZABETH II in hit stage show THE AUDIENCE - the production is heading Stateside next year (14).

The actress has won rave reviews for her role as the monarch in Stephen Daldry's West End production, which dramatises pivotal meetings between the Queen and 12 prime ministers over 60 years - and now U.S. theatre fans will have the chance to see it.

The Daily Mail reports the show is set to open in New York in 2014, and Mirren will resume her role in the play, which is due to finish its London run in June (13).

The actress says, "There are talks and negotiations going on now, and I will be going to do the play over there around this time next year."

READ MORE: http://www.express.co.uk/news/showbiz/387978/Helen-Mirren-heading-to-America-with-The-Audience

Helen Mirren nominated for an Olivier Award TELEGRAPH

By Daisy Bowie-Sell

1:45AM GMT 26 Mar 2013

She has won an Oscar, a Bafta and a Golden Globe for her portrayal of The Queen, and now Helen Mirren will have the chance to add an Olivier to her list of awards won for playing Elizabeth II.

Mirren has been nominated in the Best Actress category this year, for her role in the new play The Audience, directed by Stephen Daldry.

The Audience opened to a string of favourable reviews earlier this month, with Charles Spencer, The Daily Telegraph's theatre critic, calling Mirren's performance 'Magnificent'.

The actress will be competing for the award against Hattie Morahan, who won this year's Evening Standard Theatre Award for her role as Nora in Ibsen's A Doll's House, Billie Piper for The Effect and Kristin Scott Thomas for Old Times.

In the Best Actor category Mark Rylance has been nominated for his acclaimed, cross-dressing performance in Twelfth Night. He is up against Rupert Everett in The Judas Kiss, James McAvoy in Macbeth, Rafe Spall in Constellations and Luke Treadaway in The Curious Incident.

READ MORE:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-news/9953945/Olivier-Award-nominations-Helen-Mirren-nominated-for-best-actress.html

Dame Helen Mirren Hints At Sam Mendes Sexism At Empire Awards 25 March 2013 (CONTACT MUSIC)

Oscar-winning alumni disappointed at Skyfall director's lack of female influences

Dame Helen Mirren doesn’t indulge herself in any sort of beef too often, so when she does you tend to listen, as it’s normally based on some pretty solid foundations. So what, then, of her Empire Awards acceptance speech, where she lambasted Sam Mendes, suggesting slightly cryptically that he might be sexist?

According to The Guardian, Mirren’s issue with the Skyfall director after he’d listed an exclusively male set of influences upon picking up his best director award on stage, neglecting any female film makers. When it came to Mirren to pick her Legend award, she took to the stage and said in her acceptance speech "I don't want to unduly pick on Sam Mendes, but when he spoke about his inspirations earlier this evening, I'm afraid not a single one of the people he mentioned was a woman.” Receiving cheers from the audience. "Hopefully in five or 10 years, when Sam's successor is collecting their Inspiration award, the list will be slightly more balanced in terms of its sexual make-up. In the meantime, this one is for the girls."

READ MORE: http://www.contactmusic.com/news/dame-helen-mirren-samuel-mendes-sexist-empire-awards_3575154

Helen Mirren: Anger as film casts doubt on Phil Spector murder verdict Email Edward Helmore in New York The Observer, Saturday 16 March 2013 09.38 EDT (THE GUARDIAN)

Victims' rights groups fear that David Mamet movie will question music producer's murder conviction

Four years ago the Wall of Sound music producer Phil Spector was convicted of murdering B-movie actress Lana Clarkson at his Los Angeles castle home. Many believe Clarkson's death was a tragedy waiting to happen – Spector was well known for terrorising women, and musicians, with guns – but the guilty verdict was a surprise in a town where celebrities with far stronger evidence against them typically walk free.

Now a new HBO-produced film to be broadcast next Sunday, Phil Spector, has sparked a row between victims' rights groups and those, like the film-makers, who believe the evidence against the producer did not rise to the threshold of "beyond reasonable doubt".

Al Pacino, who stars as Spector, has revealed that, while he was undecided about Spector's guilt, David Mamet, the movie's writer and director, was certain of his innocence. Helen Mirren stars as Linda Kenney Baden, Spector's lawyer in the first of his two trials for Clarkson's murder in 2003. He was accused of putting a gun in her mouth and shooting her dead.

Spector's wife, 32-year-old Rachelle Spector, told the Observer she believes that the film, despite leaning towards the conclusion that Spector was wrongly convicted, is a breach of client-attorney confidentiality between Spector, 73, and Kenney Baden, who was an adviser to HBO. She fears it will serve to further cement her husband's reputation as a "freak and a megalomaniac" – "a minotaur" who imprisoned people in his castle.

READ MORE: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/16/phil-spector-film-doubts-murder-verdict

Helen Mirren: Review of THE AUDIENCE (LONDON THEATER)

Review by Peter Brown
2 March 2013

Helen Mirren (Queen Elizabeth II), Haydn Gwynne (Margaret Thatcher),Richard McCabe (Harold Wilson), Paul Ritter (John Major) (Photos by Johan Persson) 

Every week – when the relevant parties are in London – Queen Elizabeth II meets with her current Prime Minister for a cosy chat about … well, we don't actually know what they talk about because no minutes are published, or even kept. And so far as I am aware none of the 12 Prime Ministers who have served during the Queen's 61 year reign has given anything more than a vague hint of what their discussions have covered. So, how do you make a play out of meetings like that?

Peter Morgan's answer to that tricky question is to blend fact and fiction. He draws on what is commonly known about the personalities of various Prime Ministers and the issues they faced during their periods in office, then mixes-in the character of a shrewd, hard-working and intelligent monarch, and finally tops it all off with completely fictional but rather witty dialogue. The recipe proves immensely successful so that the final theatrical dish is humorously entertaining, well-observed, and has enough in the way of authenticity to be (just about) believable.

In the lead, as Queen Elizabeth II, is Helen Mirren who has already had a fairly decent rehearsal for the part, as she won an oscar in 2006 for her portrayal of the same person in the film 'The Queen'. With the kind of experience she has acquired, perhaps she may be missing a few performances in the near future in order to stand in for HMQ while she recovers from her current illness.


READ MORE: http://www.londontheatre.co.uk/londontheatre/reviews/audience.htm