Helen Mirren cursed out a group of drummers from a gay pride parade over the weekend, all while dressed in full stage costume as Queen Elizabeth II. She’d been onstage performing The Audience at the Gielgud Theater when the drummers, part of a parade promoting a gay and transgender festival, stopped right outside the theater. That’s when Mirren came out and gave them a good talking to, reportedly dressed in pearls and a tiara. One of the gay drummers described it as “the most fabulous thing I have ever seen.” (Okay, I made up that quote, but it feels true).

The scene, as described by Dame Helen to The Daily Telegraph, played out on Saturday evening as the noisy band of carnival-style entertainers promoted London’s As One In the Park gay music festival while Dame Helen was on stage in The Audience, for she which earned an Olivier Award last week.

Dame Helen said: “I’m afraid there were a few ‘thespian’ words used. They got a very stern royal ticking off but I have to say they were very sweet and they stopped immediately.

“I felt rotten but on the other hand they were destroying our performance so something had to be done.”
“The drumming just slowly got louder and louder and then settled right outside the stage door. There was just a thin wall between drumming and the theatre so it was unbelievably loud on stage. Paul Ritter and I could hardly hear each other speak and the audience couldn’t hear us speak at all.”

Minutes later, during the interval, the drummers suddenly fell silent as Dame Helen appeared from the stage door, evidently not amused. Mark McKenzie, who organised the parade, said: “Not much shocks you on the gay scene. But seeing Helen Mirren dressed as the Queen cussing and swearing and making you stop your parade – that’s a new one.”

Mr McKenzie claimed that Dame Helen had even given one of the parade promoters a regal tap around the head. [Telegraph]

What are “thespian words?” Words that someone else writes? Anyway, not all the drummers were so happy to quiet down, with one describing the scene in a hilarious BBC man-on-the-street interview:

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Undeterred by Matthew McConaughey‘s biggest Oscar snub of all time (with the “Ladies of Tampa” snub being a close second), Magic Mike producers are still moving forward with plans for a Magic Mike Broadway musical. And if you always dreamed of having a flamboyantly gay man grind his crotch in your face while he does a Matthew McConaughey impression and sings a song about coffee tables, you’re in luck, because a producer has confirmed to Vulture that the play will indeed have lap dances. All the best plays do. Heck, my mom practically majored in “theater.”

We got the answer to that last question when we spoke to producer Gregory Jacobs (also the first assistant director on the Magic Mike movie) at the Cinema Society premiere for Side Effects last week. “Oh, you definitely might get a lap dance,” he said. “Absolutely. That’s happening for sure.” Jacobs also let slip that “there’s bound to be a great song about how to pick out a thong,” but couldn’t reveal much more. “It’s coming along, and there will be more about it soon,” he said.

Because Burnsy and I are close personal friends of C-Tates, and not the kind of friends he feels the need to ever mention or be photographed with because we’re that close, we were able to get our hands on an exclusive set list for the Magic Mike Broadway musical.

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I’ve touched on it before when I posted about his stage show, and a lot people in and around LA already know about it, but I’m not sure most people (myself included) understood the full extent of Val Kilmer’s Mark Twain ambitions. That’s right, Val Kilmer, when he’s not cutting off clumps of his own hair with a knife onstage at rock shows, has Mark Twain ambitions. The subject recently came up in Vulture‘s interview with Up in the Air writer (the book, not the movie) Walter Kirn, who’s apparently good friends with Kilmer.

Oh, Val Kilmer. Here’s a tip: His real ambition, and what he’s putting all his time and money into — and this is no joke, because he’s good at it — is to be this generation’s preeminent Mark Twain impersonator. He wants to succeed Hal Holbrook. It’s actually kind of staggering, because no one really knows what Mark Twain’s voice sounded like. There are some descriptions but no recordings.

So he’s developed a show that he puts on somewhat spottily and informally around Los Angeles, where he wears $3,000-worth of prosthetic makeup, and he’s actually awesome at it. He wants to make the same kind of transformation that he did with Jim Morrison when he did The Doors. And as a friend, I think if he can just get a grip on his flakiness, he could really make a splash with this. It sounds a little eccentric, but he’s got a lot of material, because it’s not just old Twain, it’s the drunken, sad, regretful, pensive character that we’re not used to.

That’s right, Val Kilmer has written, produced, and finances his own one-man show that he performs in character as Mark Twain. This show, how awesomely Val Kilmer is it? Well, and I don’t mean to talk out of school, but I’ve heard tell, the thing has Batman Forever jokes. Delivered by Val Kilmer. As Mark Twain.

Here’s a particularly colorful account of one of the shows from Tumblr WalkersWheelhouse, who called it “truly one of the most bizarre things I’ve ever seen.”

- Right off the bat, Mark Twain Val Kilmer makes a Batman Forever joke. You know, because we were in the Hollywood Forever Cemetary. You can just picture him writing it and being like, “I can’t NOT make a Batman Forever joke! People will be expecting it!”

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Filmdrunkard Hendrik, our man in Hamburg, in the great European city of Germany, snapped this picture the other day, and with the combination of “Liam Neeson hologram” and “War of the Worlds stage show,” not surprisingly, he left quite confused.

Today on my way to work I walked past this obscure, bizarre poster advertising an upcoming “show” of War of the Worlds. What got my attention was the billing of Filmdrunks favourite badass wolf-puncher, Liam Neeson. Or at least his hologram. I’ve never heard or read anything about this show before and the poster is kind of vague about it. Apparently it’s Jeff Wayne’s musical version of “War of the World’s: The New Generation”, whatever the f*ck that is supposed to be. And who is Jeff Wayne?

I’m glad you asked, Hendrik, because for once I actually have an answer:

Liam Neeson is returning to the stage next year — sort of — when he takes over the role of narrator in an updated live touring version of the massively bestselling 1978 prog rock album “Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of The War of the Worlds.” But Neeson won’t actually be standing onstage alongside the other performers, he’ll be a life-size hologram.
The late Richard Burton provided the voice for the album and for the stage show that’s been touring off-and-on since 2006. But Burton, who died in 1984, has been represented in the show by animated projections and look-alike actors who had Burton’s face projected onto them. Neeson will record his own version of the narration, but will remain as a hologram.
During a press conference in England on Friday to announce the new tour, titled “The New Generation,” Wayne described the more technically ambitious revamp of the show, which will debut in November 2012.
In addition to a 100-foot CGI animation wall, the new tour will also feature a Martian fighting machine that fires real flames at the audience. [LATimes]

Sadly, that LA Times article is from November of last year, meaning I missed this, which is a bummer, because it sounds like an epic Spinal Tap wet dream and the very reason mushrooms were invented. Who says musicals have to be all boring and gay? Someone needs to update this so that it’s about The Grey, complete with a 20-foot-tall Liam Neeson hologram, punching live wolves to death with broken bottles taped to his knuckles. (I envision the wolves as trained performers equipped with squibs and blood packets).

I’m currently developing an idea for a 3D YOLOgram to represent me onstage after I die, but I worry a posthumous digital effigy could cheapen the very idea of YOLO. Discuss.

Reader Matt B. sent in this picture of Brad Cooper playing the Elephant Man onstage from People. I saw it a while back and forgot to post it, but I’m correcting that post-haste because it makes me laugh every time I look at it. See? This is what happens when you take one of the most handsome actors in Hollywood and have him play a hideously deformed freak without using any make-up. Can’t you tell? How ugly he’s supposed to be, from the face he’s making?? I mean for a second there I thought I was looking at the real Elephant Man, the acting is that good! You can tell he’s a real artist because he still does important work like this and not just shallow rom-coms. GRRR, ACTING!

Hahahahaha theater is so stupid.

[via TheSuperficial, People, BerkshireOnstage]