The LuLac Edition #2930, June 8th, 2015

POLITICAL SUMMER TIME EVENTS IN THE GREATER PITTSTON AREA

With the announcement by our friend Joe Valenti that he will be taking the summer off from “Pittston Politics” let me just take this opportunity to wish him a well deserved rest.
That said, if there are political events for various candidates that will take place in the summer in the Greater Pittston Area, please contact at me through LuLac, Facebook or Twitter. The easiest way is to message me on Facebook under David Yonki and send me any appropriate materials.

POLITICS SHINES AGAIN AT THE TONY’S

Helen Mirren

  James McCabe

(Photos: The Audience” website)

Politics has become a rather popular and good selling subject for Broadway. Last year “Breaking Bad’s” Brian Cranston won the best actor award for his portrayal of Lyndon Johnson.
This year “The Audience” garnered two big wins. Helen Mirren for best actress as Queen Elizabeth and James McCabe for his portrayal of Harold Wilson. Wilson served as Prime Minister in the 60s and then the 70s kind of becoming Britain Grover Cleveland in terms of broken successions.
The premise of the play is the weekly meetings Queen Elizabeth has with the Prime Ministers every week. For sixty years, Queen Elizabeth II has met with each of her twelve Prime Ministers in a private weekly meeting. This meeting is known as The Audience. No one knows what they discuss, not even their spouses. Peter Morgan returns with a great effort. He was an Academy Award nominee for “The Queen”, a movie in which Mirren also played Queen Elizabeth II. The focus was on the death of Princess Diana.
The Prime Ministers covered in this play are Winston Churchill who served from 1951 to 1955, Sir Anthony Eden from 1955-1957, Harold Wilson from 1964 to 1970 and then from 1974 to 1976, Margaret Thatcher from 1979 to 1990, John Major from 199 to 1997, Tony Blair from 1997 to 2007, Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010 and finally David Cameron from 2010 to the present.
Those not included for artistic or other reason we may not be aware of were Harold Macmillan from 1957 to 1963, Alec Douglas Home who served from 1963 to 1964, Edward Heath from 1970 to 1974 and James Callaghan who served from 1976 to 1979.
From what I’m told it is a great play and brings alive in inner workings of Parliament as well as a glimpse into the back corridors of Buckingham Palace.