Dame Helen Mirren is poised to divide Shakespeare purists by changing the gender of one of his greatest characters in a new adaptation of The Tempest.

For Dame Helen Mirren, who has carved out a career playing powerful women, The Tempest is about female empowerment Photo: REUTERS

For Dame Helen, 65, who has carved out a career playing powerful women from the Queen to DCI Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect, the film is about female empowerment.

The character has been renamed Prospera, the Duchess of Milan, dispossessed by her scheming brother and banished to a remote island with her daughter.

"A few years ago I was watching the play in the theatre, with Derek Jacobi playing Prospero, and I was thinking, 'My goodness, this could be played by a woman without having to change a word,'" Dame Helen said.

"Women have been punished for being powerful for many centuries, and I thought that was the remarkable thing about changing Prospero into Prospera: you can bring in that history of female struggle.

"Certainly in Shakespeare's day and many centuries before and after, women of knowledge were punished for that knowledge.

"We can see now in extreme fundamentalist states - whatever religion they are – that they want to exclude women from education. That's the first thing they do. An educated woman is a dangerous thing. An educated female sex is dangerous for the status quo. I love the fact that in making Prospero a woman we could present that history and those issues."

Changing the gender has not softened the character, Dame Helen insisted. "I think women can be pretty brutal too, particularly in terms of revenge. Remember, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.

"Certainly when women have been in power they have shown themselves to be not averse to war. Golda Meier, Margaret Thatcher, Benazir Bhutto – you never quite know if it's because they are trying to prove themselves as masculine and testosterone-y as the men around them."

Dame Helen began her career with the Royal Shakespeare Company, but her association with The Tempest goes back much further. Her very first Shakespearean role was Caliban in a school production of the play.

"When I first became enamoured with the idea of becoming an actress it was Shakespeare who drew me into the idea. I only ever wanted to be a Shakespearean actress, not a movie star or a TV actress."

The Tempest was the closing film of the festival and the premiere took place after the awards ceremony that traditionally ends proceedings.

The film is directed by Julie Taymor, whose credits include The Lion King stage musical. The film co-stars Felicity Jones as Miranda, Djimon Hounsou as Caliban and Russell Brand in the comedic role of Trinculo.

Brand may be best known for plunging the BBC into crisis when he and Jonathan Ross made prank phone calls to the actor Andrew Sachs in a notorious Radio 2 broadcast, but Dame Helen remains his biggest fan. The Tempest is the first of two films in which she plays opposite Brand – the second is a forthcoming remake of Arthur, in which he plays the Dudley Moore role and she is his devoted nanny.

"Russell is Shakespearean himself," Mirren said. "He uses language in a Shakespearean way – it flows out of him. He is one of the most interesting, extraordinary, talented people I have ever worked with, and I have to say one of the kindest. He is utterly sweet-natured and I can't get enough of him."

Taymor, an American, cast Brand without knowing anything about him and described him as a "genius".

She said: "It wasn't hard to imagine Russell Brand as the drunken court jester so I wouldn't say that was a huge leap of my imagination. But he was deadly serious, extremely prepared and a lot of fun on set. He was just hilarious. Although he does these comedy movies he's got tremendous potential for just about anything."

The Tempest was shot on the Hawaiian island of Lanai, which is privately owned by David Murdock, billionaire boss of the Dole pineapple company. The local film commission turned down the request to film there but Mr Murdock is a Shakespeare buff and gave his consent when the producers contacted him directly with details of the project.

British audiences will have to wait until April next year to see the film, a release that coincides with the play's 400th anniversary. Taymor said: "Film is a perfect medium for Shakespeare because it allows the audience to see the faces close up, and without necessarily comprehending everything they understand what's going on.

"There have been over 700 Shakespeare films. He's arguably our most prolific screenwriter, alive or dead."

Source: The Telegraph (UK)