Robert Hardy to reprise Winston Churchill role alongside Helen Mirren's Queen II in West End

Dame Helen Mirren and Robert Hardy (PA)

Robert Hardy will play Winston Churchill for the eighth time in his career after it was announced he will line up opposite Helen Mirren's Queen Elizabeth II in the West End.

The pair will star in Peter Morgan's The Audience, which imagines meetings, held in the strictest confidence, between the Queen and her prime ministers from Churchill to David Cameron.

Peak Practice star Haydn Gwynne will play Margaret Thatcher with John Major being played by Paul Ritter.

Hardy has previously played Churchill seven times including Winston Churchill: The Wilderness Years and most recently in Celui Qui A Dit Non in Paris in French.

He is also known for starring in the Harry Potter films as Cornelius Fudge and for his role as Siegfried Farnon in the television adaptation of James Herriot's All Creatures Great And Small.

The play will be directed by Billy Elliot film-maker Stephen Daldry and will run at the Gielgud Theatre from February.

It marks a return to royal duty for Mirren who won an Oscar for her lead role in the 2006 film The Queen.