Helen Mirren Vents Anger At Street Drummers

Dame Helen Mirren was dressed in full Queen Elizabeth II costume when she shocked a group of street drummers on Saturday, May 4. The 67-year-old actress, who played the Queen in drama “The Audience”, stormed out of a London theater in the middle of her show and berated the drummers for being too noisy and disturbing the play.

Organizer of As One In The Park gay music festival, Joe O’Leary, said of Mirren, “This little old lady came running out in a green dress, pearls and a tiara and headed for the conductor. She was saying, ‘shut the f**k up, people have paid f**king a hundred pounds for their theatre tickets’. She said the F-word about 20 times.” He added, “She was proper on a rant.”

“I’m afraid there were a few ‘thespian’ words used. I felt rotten but on the other hand they were destroying our performance so something had to be done,” Mirren referred to the expletives she used to tell the drummers to stop.

She recalled, “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 theater so it was unbelievably loud on stage.”

On Monday, May 6, Mirren apologised to the drummers whom she yelled at. She told Mirror, “They were absolute sweethearts and stopped the second I asked them. I’d love them to see the play and understand why I was upset. I felt terrible… they’re fellow performers.”

Mirren portrays Queen Elizabeth II in “The Audience”, a play written by Peter Morgan which tells about the Queen’s weekly meetings with the many prime ministers who have served throughout her reign.