But he dismisses claims that Mr. Schneider is the spitting image of the general, saying that his rival's face is too thin to represent the older Napoleon.

WSJ: Complex Napoleon Rivalry Heads for Its Waterloo

However, in this scene (as in several others) the playwright succumbs to the temptations of parody, and a miscast Haydn Gwynne towers over the queen in the manner of the celebrated shaving-and-cigar-smoking "Spitting Image" caricature of the Iron Lady.

WSJ: Review: Taking Tea with the Figurehead | 'The Audience' at the Gielgud Theatre in London

The most biting of all was "Spitting Image, " a satirical puppet show broadcast on Sunday evenings on ITV from 1984 until 1996 that pilloried public figures, especially Thatcher, whom the program often portrayed as an insane megalomaniac.

CNN: Flare and fury: How artists lambasted Margaret Thatcher

"Thatcher was one of the main reasons we did 'Spitting Image' -- I knew why I was doing it and I would have killed my mother to have done it, " he said.

CNN: Flare and fury: How artists lambasted Margaret Thatcher