What is remarkable is that Helen Mirren plays the queen from age 25 in 1952 on her succession to the throne to today in her eighties. The scenes are not in chronological order and only 8 out of the 12 prime ministers feature and not in chronological order. The Audience is the weekly briefing meeting that the Queen has on a Tuesday with her current prime minister. As a constitutional monarch, she is unable to disagree with the policy of her government and Thatcher takes her to task when the Sunday Times publishes opinions said to come from “sources close to the Queen” — that she finds her government to be uncaring, lacking in compassion and socially divisive.

Mirren portrays the queen at various ages: We see her in her sixties, with brown hair greying at the sides, empathetically receiving John Major (a wonderfully self deprecating, self effacing Paul Ritter) who cannot quite grasp how he has been propelled to such heights of government. We see the 25 year old being shown the ropes by the sonorous Winston Churchill (Edward Fox, who is a few stone short of suspending disbelief but who sounds magnificent). The Queen expresses her wish to take her husband’s name like other young wives, and be called Mountbatten not Windsor, but Churchill points out in this decade after the Second World War fought against Germany, that his surname should really be Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderberg-Glucksberg.

The short scenes in between each prime minister are filled with the Young Elizabeth (Bebe Cave/Maya Gerber/Nell Williams) giving insights as to her preparation for a life time of service as next in line to the throne after her father became king in 1938. This is all the time that Mirren has to change her dress, her wig, her makeup, her body shape and stance to convince us that this is the queen from another era. In one scene she changes on stage, shielded by equerries, from the white gown and tiara for a formal portrait by photographer Cecil Beaton to the blue suit she wears to greet Mrs Thatcher. Very clever!

Harold Wilson (Richard McCabe), the Gannex mac wearing Yorkshire man and socialist prime minister unexpectedly turns out to be a favourite of the queen, and the only one since Churchill to be honoured with her and Prince Philip attending dinner at his residence at 10 Downing Street. We see Wilson three times, once in London on the first occasion of their meeting when as a rough diamond he raises the topic of the class war. He has a parliamentary majority in single figures. Secondly in Scotland, Balmoral where he impresses with a photographic memory of pages in a hard to find book. Hard to find because apparently reading is not a popular royal pursuit. But we do see the royal corgis, favourite dogs of the queen and her mother. On the last occasion Wilson is concerned he has Alzheimers and knows he will soon have to resign.