THE KING’S SPEECH Wyndham’s Theatre

I enjoyed the film. I enjoyed the play. There is nothing like playing Sir Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance, if you want to make absolutely certain there is not a dry eye in the house when King George VI delivers his speech to the nation at the outbreak of war. David Seidler insists that he wrote the play before the film; but what is seen on stage still feels very much like a film-script. Charles Edwards, a skilful actor, with an invaluable light comedy touch, judges the stammer perfectly and he is also deeply moving. His performance and Jonathan Hyde’s as the Australian therapist, who has no time for royal protocol, are in no way inferior to those of Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush in the film; and in the year of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, and all the patriotic flag-waving, Adrian Noble’s economical and elegant production should and deserves to do well at the box-office.