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: 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