Helen Mirren’s Queen Elizabeth play that inspired The Crown returning to cinemas | Films | Entertainment

Long before The Crown, Peter Morgan wrote the 2006 film The Queen, for which Dame Helen Mirren won an Oscar.

The pair reunited in 2013 for the West End play, The Audience, with the actress reprising Queen Elizabeth II from the 1950s through to the present day.

The focus of the production was on the late monarch’s weekly private meetings with her prime ministers, from Sir Winston Churchill to David Cameron, and on speculating what their conversations might have been.

Of course, fans of Morgan’s The Crown can easily see how the play inspired the Netflix TV series with its regular audience scenes throughout the seasons.

What’s incredible, though, is that the filmed version of the Olivier and Tony Award-winning production (Mirren won Best Actress for both) has been unavailable to rent, buy, or stream on the National Theatre app since it played in cinemas over a decade ago. The only way one could see it would be to visit the National Theatre archives at Waterloo and watch it on a computer monitor with headphones. But now the incredible production, which became one of the most-watched National Theatre Live broadcasts upon its initial 2014 release is finally returning to cinemas on February 26. Tickets are available to book at the likes of Cineworld and Odeon now.