A royal secret

For over sixty years Elizabeth II met each of her Prime Ministers in a weekly audience at Buckingham Palace, under the unspoken agreement never to repeat what is said.

'The Crown' writer Peter Morgan's award-winning play The Audience breaks this contract of silence in spectacular fashion - and cleverly imagines a series of pivotal meetings between the Downing Street incumbents and their monarch. From Winston Churchill through to David Cameron, each Prime Minister has used these private conversations as a sounding board and a confessional that are sometimes intimate and sometimes explosive. We see Wilson confess to his early-stage Alzheimer's, Gordon Brown battling his demons, and even John Major reduced to tears in her presence. In turn, the Queen can't help but reveal her self as she advises, consoles, and, on occasion, teases.

From a young mother to great-grandmother these private audiences chart the arc of the second Elizabethan Age. Politicians come and go through the revolving door of electoral politics, while she remains a fixed point in history, waiting to welcome her next Prime Minister.