`Queen` Helen Mirren swears at `noisy` street drummers during theatre performance

London: Helen Mirren, who was playing Queen in the hit play ` The Audience,` swore at noisy street drummers after they disrupted her performance.

The showdown happened after drummers promoting a gay music festival paraded through Soho and halted outside the Gielgud Theatre in Winnett Street. The drumming rose in a crescendo for around eight minutes and drowned out part of the first half of the play, in which the Queen, played by Mirren, talks to a succession of Prime Ministers. At the interval, still wearing her royal get-up, the Oscar winner opened the theatre doors and went outside to confront the band in front of stunned onlookers, the Sun reported. Promoter Joe O`Leary, 32, who was at the drumming parade, said, "She said people had paid `a lot of f***ing money` to watch her show and that we were `f***ing ruining it.` When the show resumed inside the theatre - after also being hit by a power cut - the 67-year-old actress apologised to the audience for the noise. She got a standing ovation at the end by the theatre audience. The drummers had been highlighting the As One In The Park festival, which is to be headlined by singers Rita Ora and Katy B on May 26. ANI