On Saturday, Helen Mirren had had enough of the incessant drumming outside the Gielgud Theatre where she was performing as the Queen in The Audience. A band of drummers were outside promoting London’s As One in the Park gay music festival and their music cut through the theatre walls annoying Mirren to no end.
When the play had its intermission, Helen went outside still in full Queen costume and cussed them out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=LFWdjPrtsZA
Mark McKenzie, who organised the parade, said: “Not much shocks you on the gay scene. But seeing Helen Mirren dressed as the Queen cussing and swearing and making you stop your parade – that’s a new one.”
Mr McKenzie claimed that Dame Helen had even given one of the parade promoters a regal tap around the head.
Dame Helen said: “I’m afraid there were a few ‘thespian’ words used. They got a very stern royal ticking off but I have to say they were very sweet and they stopped immediately.
“I felt rotten but on the other hand they were destroying our performance so something had to be done.
“The drumming just slowly got louder and louder and then settled right outside the stage door. There was just a thin wall between drumming and the theatre so it was unbelievably loud on stage. Paul Ritter and I could hardly hear each other speak and the audience couldn’t hear us speak at all.
“We were doing this last scene of the first act where the Queen is being told she is going to lose Britannia [the royal yacht], it’s quite an emotional scene.
“I thought, we can’t carry on like this, they have to stop.
“I was so upset from struggling through the scene with Paul that I literally walked straight off stage, straight up the stairs and straight out the stage door and banged my way through the crowd who were watching and said ‘stop, you’ve got to stop right now’ only I might have used stronger language than that.
“They were very sweet and stopped the minute they knew I wasn’t just a batty old woman haranguing them on the streets of Soho on a Saturday night.” Telegraph
Helen kind of felt bad about it later and wants to make it up to the drummers by inviting them to see her play. That or this is a really passive-aggressive way of making them see the beauty that they were ruining and fill them with so much guilt that they won’t be able to stay mad at her.