Audiences at Richmond theatre will be among the first to see the premiere production of The King’s Speech, the play by David Seidler that inspired this year’s Oscar and BAFTA-winning film of the same name.
The production, directed by former RSC Artistic Director Adrian Noble and starring Charles Edwards as King George VI, will tour the UK from February 2012, playing at Richmond theatre from 5 to 10 March.
Seidler originally wrote the true story of how King George VI overcame his debilitating stutter as a play, before adapting it into a screenplay for the 2010 film starring Colin Firth. The movie went on to win four Oscars and seven BAFTAs, including a pair of Best Original Screenplay awards for Seidler.
The job of following in the footsteps of Oscar-winner Firth is left to Edwards, who earlier this year played Benedick in an acclaimed production of Much Ado About Nothing at Shakespeare’s Globe. The actor’s work includes several productions for director Peter Hall, including his 80th birthday production of Twelfth Night earlier this year, however Edwards is probably best known for playing the lead role of Richard Hannay in the spoof stage adaptation of The 39 Steps, which he recreated on Broadway after a successful West End run.
Joining Edwards is Australian actor Jonathan Hyde, who takes the role of maverick speech therapist Lionel Logue, played by Geoffrey Rush in the film. Hyde’s work in the UK includes King Lear and The Seagull for the Royal Shakespeare Company, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens and Antigone at the Old Vic.
The premiere of Seidler’s play is the culmination of a project that began in the 1970s, when the author, a stutterer himself, first became interested in writing the story of George VI. After approaching Lionel Logue’s son and Buckingham Palace, he agreed to postpone his work until after the Queen Mother’s death, in 2002.
The King’s Speech premieres at Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud theatre on 1 February before touring to Nottingham, Bath, Brighton, Richmond and Newcastle.
CB