The day James Bond was both shaken and stirred

Many have portrayed Queen Elizabeth on the stage and screen but none as well as Helen Mirren, argues Michael Simkins

Britain's Queen Elizabeth II is the country's longest reigning monarch. Mary McCartney / Queen Elizabeth II via AP Photo

In the inventory of eye-catching events, it may not have the same immediate impact as Chris Froome winning the Tour de France or even Wayne Rooney becoming England’s highest goal scorer, but if you live in the UK you cannot fail to have been impressed by the latest record to be broken by a Brit.

Last Wednesday afternoon, Queen Elizabeth II became the country’s longest-serving monarch, reigning for 63 years and 217 days.

Elizabeth’s period as ruler is a remarkable feat, not least because when she was born she was not even in immediate line to the throne. But then fate dealt a different hand and in 1952 she found herself head of state when her father, George VI, died suddenly while on a state visit to Kenya.

Since then she has ruled over her subjects for six decades with a blend of stoicism, grace and steely dedication that has never wavered.

She remains a much-loved figure in the eyes of the British public, and admired and trusted by rulers and politicians in all corners of the world.

Indeed, such is her longevity that she has ruled alongside 155 leaders in the Arab world alone.

Perhaps the secret of her durability is that she’s remained a distant, almost opaque figure. While admired by many, few in the UK would claim to know her.

Despite being one of the most photographed women in the world, her mask has never slipped and she has retained an unwavering composure that has revealed almost nothing of her inner feelings.

Indeed, the actress Dame Helen Mirren, who in recent years has made something of a career of portraying the Queen – and one of very few thesps who has made a decent fist of doing so – has had some interesting things to say about her real life doppelganger.

“The public are prone to misunderstand her,” Mirren said in a recent interview, “because she doesn’t smile all the time. But she’s not a movie star ... smiling is not a requirement. What’s required is to be dignified.”

Elizabeth II’s unbending reserve not only explains why she’s so hard to portray, but also why the moment when she accepted the invitation from James Bond to attend the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympics was so utterly unforgettable. It remains one of the great coups in television history.

She may only have spoken four words in that clip: “Good evening Mr Bond” but with that short phrase she ensured that there could never be a more memorable Olympic opening ceremony, however big the budget.

Even Helen Mirren could never top such a pitch perfect piece of acting. Yet its real power was in the fact that Queen Elizabeth II had agreed to utter the line in the first place.

I suspect we won’t see its like again. Since then, it has been business as usual with Elizabeth II.

She is, of course, a monarch who, because of her limited constitutional powers, is necessarily obliged to express herself obliquely, by inference and nuance rather than by directly expressed opinion, and who has turned what some would consider a stultifying restriction into a source of strength and continuity.

That’s not to say that someone, somewhere, won’t know who she is, even in the UK – as her own mother once discovered.

Legend tells of a foreign dignitary attending an official dinner at 10 Downing Street, the residence of the prime minister, during the Second World War, who found himself sitting next to a woman whom he vaguely recognised but had no clue as to who she was or what she was doing there.

Eventually, after several minutes of tortuous chitchat, and in a desperate attempt to glean something which might give him a clue, he asked hopefully: “And what’s your husband doing these days?’

“Oh” replied the woman mildly, “he’s still king”.

Michael Simkins is an actor and writer in London

On Twitter: @michael_simkins