Click on the headline to link to a Wikipedia entry for the film The King’s Speech.
The King’s Speech, starring Colin Firth, Helen Bonham Carter, directed by Tom Hooper, 2010
No question Mr. Darcy (oops) Colin Firth deserved every accolade, including the coveted Oscar, for his performance as the stammering King George VI (the current monarch’s father). Anyone from king to kid (including this writer) who has had even a passing acquaintance with stammering can relate to the story line here, and the sheer talent necessary for an actor to convincingly produce such a realistic portrayal (especially that climatic pep talk speech to the empire). And hats off to Geoffrey Rush as the unorthodox tutor who sees the king through his travails. However, at the end of the day and as the good king himself was painfully aware, good republican that I am I was left with the gnawing feeling that the monarchy
(and the monarch) portrayed add nothing to our accumulated historical experience. Old Oliver Cromwell and his boys had it right in 1649-and it hasn’t been right since 1660.
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