Hey Hey What What

Happy new year to everyone: all the boys and girls, all the sad and happy people, all the optimists and pessimists, all the loved and unloved, all of you and all of me. May 2010 bring us what we want, what we pray for and what we dream of.

I recently rewatched an old favourite film: The Madness of King George. I forgot how good it was: it tells the story of how George III of Hanoverian England lost his mind. We see him degenerate from a jovial, overly excited, well liked monarch to a foul-mouthed, deranged lunatic. With an ambitious Prince of Wales (played by Rupert Everett in all his oily and wigged glory) waiting in the wings to become Prince Regent, it becomes highly important for the mad king to find his sanity. He is aided by William Pit (the younger) and a parson-turned-doctor who uses unconventional methods to treat the poorly sovereign. Wonderfully portrayed by Nigel Hawthorne, the cast also includes a German accented Helen Mirren who plays Queen Charlotte, the devoted and patient wife of Farmer George, as he is lovingly known as by his subjects.

It is also a play by Alan Bennett, and as you can imagine, the dialogue reflects his usual wit! An interesting look at lunacy and how it affects even the highest of kings.