King’s Speech to be staged at West End

An acclaimed stage version of Oscar-winning film The King’s Speech is to transfer to London’s West End.

Writer David Seidler originally planned the production as a play before it was adapted into the hugely successful film starring Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter.

The stage version opened recently in Guildford but now a four-month West End run at Wyndham’s Theatre has been announced.

It will feature the same cast as the touring production, with Charles Edwards as King George VI and Jonathan Hyde as speech therapist Lionel Logue.

Mr Seidler, who won one of the film’s four Oscars for his screenplay about how the king overcame his stammer, first worked on the project in the late 1970s, but he dropped it 30 years ago after being asked by the Queen Mother’s private secretary not to pursue it during her lifetime.

He returned to it in 2005 and the script was eventually picked up by director Tom Hooper and turned into the hit film.

The stage production has also been well received.

The Guardian’s Michael Billington predicted it would be a “commercial hit” in his review.

He said: “Royalists will enjoy its portrait of a king emerging triumphant while republicans will savour the irony that the monarchy’s survival depended on a failed actor from Adelaide”.

The King’s Speech opens at Wyndham’s Theatre on March 22.