Chit chat - Her Royal Helen

Published Monday 21 April 2008 at 16:00 by Tabard

There was a time when you would get the Queen down to name your new ship, or, if Her Majesty was otherwise engaged, perhaps another member of the royal family.

Now, it seems, there is a ready-made stand-in if Liz is busy walking the Corgis.

Fresh from her title role in the feature film The Queen, Helen Mirren was called in last week to do the honours in Portsmouth when it came time to dub the newest and largest addition to the P&O fleet, the Ventura.

Dame Helen gave the signal to a team of Royal Marine commandos to abseil from a bridge and smash the obligatory bottle of Champagne against the ship’s side.

Just think, this could turn into a nice little earner for Mirren. She could stand in for all kinds of events - the Royal Variety Performance, the Queen’s Speech at Christmas, maybe even royal duties with Prince Philip. Tabard suspects he wouldn’t complain.

In fact, perhaps we should expect to see her advertising in the back pages of The Stage some time soon, alongside all the other lookalikes.