The Audience

Winston Churchill
Prime Minister 1951–1955

Churchill served under six monarchs: Queen Victoria, King Edward VII, King George V, King Edward VIII, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II.
During his second Prime Ministership Churchill would often brief his cabinet ministers from his bed, an unlit cigar in his mouth, Rufus his bad-breathed poodle on the bed and Toby his budgerigar sitting on his shoulder, cabinet papers spread about the bed and a secretary ready to take dictation.
In 1899, Churchill escaped a prisoner of war camp whilst a correspondent covering the Boer War. The bounty on his head was 25 pounds. He returned home a hero.
In later life, and in particular his second Prime Ministership, Churchill’s bed often acted as his preferred location to discuss matters of great state importance. A bespoke breakfast table to fit his bed was commissioned especially to accommodate his unusual conferences.
While staying in the White House during WW2, Roosevelt came into Churchill’s room just as Churchill emerged from the bathroom with a towel around his middle, which in surprise, Churchill dropped. “The Prime Minister of Great Britain has nothing to conceal from the President of the United States,” said an unfazed Churchill.
Upon his death, Elizabeth II granted him the honour of a state funeral, which saw one of the largest assemblies of world statesmen in history, with representatives from 112 nations; only China did not send an emissary. By decree of the Queen, his body lay in state for three days and a state funeral service was held at St Paul's Cathedral on 30 January 1965. Unusually, the Queen attended the funeral. The Royal Artillery fired the 19-gun salute due a head of government, and the RAF staged a fly-by of sixteen English Electric Lightning fighters.

Sir Anthony Eden
Prime Minister 1955–1957

The writer and critic A. N. Wilson, who observed in 2008 that Eden was "easily the best-looking individual, of either sex, to occupy [the] office [of Prime Minister] in the twentieth century", noted also that he was "the only male Prime Minister known to have varnished his fingernails".
Eden’s father was an eccentric baronet, given to hurling joints of roast lamb out of windows. When hunting he loved jumping closed level-crossing gates without seeing if there were any oncoming trains, and his language was so bad that Durham miners would turn up simply for the pleasure of hearing the baronet swear as he presided over local police courts.
At a conference in the early 1930s, he and Adolf Hitler observed that they had probably fought on opposite sides of the trenches in the Ypres sector.
After his operation Eden was prescribed Benzedrine, the wonder drug of the 1950s. His drug use is now commonly agreed to have been part of the reason for the Prime Minister's ill judgment during Suez.
Eden remains the only British Prime Minister to have been divorced, which was particularly ironic as he had to advise the Queen against Princess Margaret being allowed to wed the divorced Group Captain Townsend (if it was up to him he would have allowed it, but the Cabinet were against it).

Harold Macmillan
Prime Minister 1957–1963

In the 30s Macmillan suffered a breakdown when his wife embarked on an open affair with one of Macmillan’s Tory colleagues, the bisexual Robert Boothby. The affair was to continue for years and Macmillan learnt to keep an impassive demeanour in public.
In WW1 he was wounded five times. During the Battle of the Somme, he spent an entire day wounded and lying in a slit trench with a bullet in his pelvis, reading the classical Greek playwright Aeschylus in the original language.
Before one particularly stormy Cabinet meeting Macmillan sent his private secretary to the chemist in Whitehall to buy tranquilizers for every Cabinet Minister. When they sat down there was a packet of ‘Relaxatabs’ on every blotter. The meeting went very smoothly, with very little disagreement.
Few things disrupt the arrangement of the Tuesday pm audience between the Queen and her Prime Minister if both are in the country. When Harold Macmillan returned from his 'Winds of Change' tour of South Africa in 1960 he had an audience with the Queen on 16th February even though it was only three days before the birth of Prince Andrew.

Sir Alec Douglas-Home
Prime Minister 1963–1964

A plot to kidnap Douglas-Home in April 1964 was foiled by the Prime Minister himself. Two left-wing students from the University of Aberdeen followed him to the house where he was staying. He was alone at the time and answered the door to the students who told him they were there to kidnap him. With sang froid he replied, "I suppose you realise if you do, the Conservatives will win the election by 200 or 300." He then gave his intending abductors some beer, and they abandoned their plot.
Douglas-Home was a talented sportsman; in particular he excelled at cricket and was unique among British Prime Ministers in having played first-class cricket.
As Chamberlain’s parliamentary aide he had been present at the Munich pact meeting with Hitler but had warned the Prime Minister not to make his ill fated ‘peace in our time’ speech on his return the UK.

Harold Wilson
Prime Minister 1964–1970 & 1974–1976

Wilson persuaded the Queen to drop a lot of stuffy protocol that was part of The Audience ritual since the time of Queen Victoria. Drinks were introduced to be served, even after the audience.
Famous for the phrase "a week is a long time in politics".
At the age of 21, Wilson became one of the youngest Oxford University dons of the 20th century.
He spoke with a studied working class Yorkshire accent, although this was not part of his background, as his father had spoken "upper class" English.
When 8 year old Wilson visited London, his parents took a later to be famous photo of him standing on the doorstep of Number 10.

Edward Heath
Prime Minister 1970–1974

He introduced the three day week at the height of the miners’ strikes in order to conserve power. Heath banned the Queen from making any reference to it in her Christmas speech of that year, despite the Queen wishing to express sympathy for the difficulties people were facing. She had to comply.
Heath, like Wilson, was a grammar school success story and was the first Tory PM of the 20th century to not come from the upper classes. Instead he came from the lower middle class and from a poorer background with much stronger working class roots than Wilson.
Heath and Wilson detested each other and their parliamentary verbal battles were legendary; Heath would retreat to his music as “the best way of getting that bloody man Wilson out of his hair”.
His bad relations with Thatcher were known as "the longest sulk in history".

James Callaghan
Prime Minister 1976–1979

Nicknamed "Sunny Jim", "Gentleman Jim", "Lucky Jim" or "Big Jim".
The only one of the Queen’s Labour PMs who had actually come from poverty and had been a trade union leader.
One week of their audience, when Callaghan was going through a particularly rocky time, the Queen took Callaghan for a stroll in the gardens of Buckingham Palace and put a sprig of lily of the valley in his pocket.
His daughter, Margaret Jay, was caught up in scandal when she was resident in Washington with her husband Peter, who had been posted as British Ambassador when her father was Prime Minister. Margaret embarked on an affair with Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein. Bernstein’s wife, Norah Ephron, would get her revenge by portraying her husband’s lover as the other woman in the Hollywood film Heartburn, starring Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson.

Margaret Thatcher
Prime Minister 1979–1990

Mrs Thatcher had a habit of always turning up for the weekly audience 15 minutes early. And, just as regularly, instead of admitting her, the Queen would keep her Prime Minister waiting for exactly a quarter of an hour.
Her first boyfriend was a strapping Scottish farmer who worked on an Essex farm near her work named Willie Cullen. Margaret suggested that Willie visit her family on his way up to a holiday in Scotland. Willie did and fell in love with Margaret’s sister Muriel, whom he eventually married. They settled down together on a pig farm in Essex. Margaret was upset but had her embryonic political career to distract her where she would meet her future husband.
Thatcher would turn up in tweeds and low heels at Balmoral. The Queen would remark the Prime Minister walks on the roads, not the hills.
In February 2007, Thatcher became the first living UK Prime Minister to be honoured with a statue in the Houses of Parliament. The bronze statue stands opposite that of her political hero, Sir Winston Churchill, and was unveiled on 21 February 2007 with Thatcher in attendance; she made a rare and brief speech in the members' lobby of the House of Commons, responding: "I might have preferred iron – but bronze will do... It won't rust."

John Major
Prime Minister 1990–1997

Major was passed over for the job of bus conductor because of his height.
Major nearly died in a car crash in Nigeria in 1967 when sent there by his company.
Major was appointed a special guardian to Princes William and Harry after Diana’s death, with responsibility for legal and administrative matters.
Major grew up in a flat in Brixton, sharing the building with a cat burglar, a Jamaican later arrested for stabbing a policeman and a trio of Irish tax dodgers.

Tony Blair
Prime Minister 1997–2007

On Blair’s first meeting with the Queen after his 1997 election victory, he tripped over the edge of the carpet and fell upon the Queen’s outstretched hand which he was supposed to brush with his lips (known as the “kissing of hands” whereby the new Prime Minister is formally installed by the sovereign).
At the age of 17 Blair was given "six of the best" at Fettes, his public school (known as the Eton of the north) for persistently flouting the school rules and was threatened with expulsion. He was also arrested at Fettes, having been mistaken for a burglar as he climbed into his dormitory using a ladder after having been out late.
Because Blair is credited as being instrumental in ending the conflict in Kosovo, boys born in that country following the war have been given the name Toni or Tonibler.

Gordon Brown
Prime Minister 2007–2010

During a stay by the Brown family at Balmoral, one of Brown’s young sons asked the Queen where all the soldiers were to protect her. The Queen replied that the corgis do that.
The Queen, a great mimic, is said to be able to give a ‘spot on’ imitation of Gordon Brown.
During a rugby union match at his old school Brown received a kick to the head and suffered a retinal detachment. This left him blind in his left eye, despite treatment including several operations and weeks spent lying in a darkened room. Later at Edinburgh, while playing tennis, he noticed the same symptoms in his right eye. Brown underwent experimental surgery at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary and his right eye was saved.

David Cameron
Prime Minister from 2010

Cameron went to Heatherdown, the same prep school as Princes Edward and Andrew. Edward was two years above Cameron. The school, now closed, was so elitist that it famously provided three separate lavatories on Sports Day – one for Ladies, one for Gentlemen and one for Chauffeurs.
The Queen first saw David Cameron over 30 years ago when she attended a pantomime of Wind In The Willows at Heatherdown, in which Prince Edward played Mole and David Cameron played ‘Harold Rabbit’. His old teacher remembers Cameron as a confident actor.
At Eton, six weeks before taking his O-Levels he was named as having smoked cannabis. He admitted the offence and had not been involved in selling drugs so he was not expelled, but was fined, prevented from leaving school grounds, and given a "Georgic" (a punishment which involved copying 500 lines of Latin text).

Header

Matther Byam Shaw, Robert Fox and Andy Harries present

Helen Mirren in The Audience

Navigation

Main Content

Number 10

Footer

Gielgud Theatre

Shaftesbury Avenue,
London W1D 6AR |
A Delfont Mackintosh Theatre

Winston Churchill
Prime Minister 1951–1955

Sir Anthony Eden
Prime Minister 1955–1957

Harold Macmillan
Prime Minister 1957–1963

Sir Alec Douglas-Home
Prime Minister 1963–1964

Harold Wilson
Prime Minister 1964–1970 & 1974–1976

Edward Heath
Prime Minister 1970–1974

James Callaghan
Prime Minister 1976–1979

Margaret Thatcher
Prime Minister 1979–1990

John Major
Prime Minister 1990–1997

Tony Blair
Prime Minister 1997–2007

Gordon Brown
Prime Minister 2007–2010

David Cameron
Prime Minister from 2010

Header

Matther Byam Shaw, Robert Fox and Andy Harries present

Helen Mirren in The Audience

Navigation

Main Content

Number 10

Footer

Gielgud Theatre

Shaftesbury Avenue, London W1D 6AR | A Delfont Mackintosh Theatre

Winston Churchill Prime Minister 1951–1955

Sir Anthony Eden Prime Minister 1955–1957

Harold Macmillan Prime Minister 1957–1963

Sir Alec Douglas-Home Prime Minister 1963–1964

Harold Wilson Prime Minister 1964–1970 & 1974–1976

Edward Heath Prime Minister 1970–1974

James Callaghan Prime Minister 1976–1979

Margaret Thatcher Prime Minister 1979–1990

John Major Prime Minister 1990–1997

Tony Blair Prime Minister 1997–2007

Gordon Brown Prime Minister 2007–2010

David Cameron Prime Minister from 2010

Shaftesbury Avenue,
London W1D 6AR |
A Delfont Mackintosh Theatre

Winston Churchill
Prime Minister 1951–1955

Sir Anthony Eden
Prime Minister 1955–1957

Harold Macmillan
Prime Minister 1957–1963

Sir Alec Douglas-Home
Prime Minister 1963–1964

Harold Wilson
Prime Minister 1964–1970 & 1974–1976

Edward Heath
Prime Minister 1970–1974

James Callaghan
Prime Minister 1976–1979

Margaret Thatcher
Prime Minister 1979–1990

John Major
Prime Minister 1990–1997

Tony Blair
Prime Minister 1997–2007

Gordon Brown
Prime Minister 2007–2010

David Cameron
Prime Minister from 2010