Production information

The British Royal Family has never had much success in keeping its scandals quiet. Kings and Queens of England have learned the hard way what men of power always hate to accept: that behind the grand facade, they are only human beings. And when the facade crumbles, the whole world is ready to pounce...
 

The Royal Family of England, circa 1788.

King George III, a vibrant, robust, if eccentric leader, almost 30 years into his reign. Queen Charlotte, his wife, a devoted and dutiful partner. And their children - all fiteen of them, including The Prince of Wales and his younger brother, the Duke of York. To the nation, the King and Queen represent the basic fundamentals of stability and an ordered family life.

Yet beneath this veneer of respectability something has gone awry. The King has begun acting in a bizarre fashion, spewing obscenities, attacking the Queen's fetching young Lady in Waiting and interrupting a royal concert with a vigorous demonstration of his own mastery of the keyboard.

Is it possible? Has the unthinkable happened?

Has the King of England gone... mad?

The Samuel Goldwyn Company in association with Channel Four Films presents a Close Call Films production, The Madness of King George, starring Nigel Hawthorne, Helen Mirren, Ian Holm, Amanda Donohoe, Rupert Graves and Rupert Everett. The film is directed by Nicholas Hytner and produced by Stepehn Evans and David Parliff. The screenplay is by Alan Bennett, based on his play, The Madness of George III.
 

England, 1788. The State Opening of Parliament.

Surrounded by the flurry and turmoil of last minute preparation is King George III (Nigel Hawthorne), accompanied by his loyal and devoted wife, Queen Charlotte (Helen Mirren) and he Mistress of the Robes, Lady Pembroke (Amanda Donohoe). Also participating in the event, albeit reluctantly, is a very bored Prince of Wales (Rupert Everett) and his younger brother, The Duke of York (Julian Rhind Tutt), together with a host of household staff, adept at displaying an imperious front to an unsuspecting country. Or so they think.

Inside the walls of Windsor Castle a dramatic scenario is being played out, one which threatens to destroy the Royal Family's armor of proper etiquette and respectability. The King is suddenly taken ill. Not with any recognizeable physical ailment, but rather with an onset of bizarre and irrational behavior.

No one is safe from his attentions. Babbling ceaselessly, hyperactive and obsessed by the loss of his colonies in North America, the King rampages through Windsor. As his condition worsens, a gaggle of doctors jostle to proclaim the correct diagnosis, while London is gripped by a political pwer struggle - as Prime Minister Pitt (Julian Wadham) tries to subdue an inflamed House of Commons with false assurances of the King's good health.

A key player in the ensuing drama is the Prince of Wales, who wants his father declared unfit and himself proclaimed Regent. To encourage this, the Prince has his mother, the Queen, denied access to her own husband, leaving the tormented monarch a figure in isolation and at the mercy of his doctors. The only sympathetic friend to the King is his new equerry, Captain Greville (Rupert Graves).

As the King slides closer to dementia, Lady Pembroke approaches the Prime Minister and recommends a new physician, Dr. Willis (Ian Holm). While the royal doctors continue to squabble over their archaic and ridiculous treatments, Willis takes temporary leave of his asylum in Lincolnshire and emerges as a shrink before his time - one of the first recorded psychotherapists.

Unfortunately, even as the King's condition improves under the watchful eyes of Dr. Willis, a bill is prepared to declare the Prince of Wales as Regent. Horrified by this action, the Queen looks to Lady Pembroke to bring about a visit with the King. Aware of Captain Greville's attraction to her, Lady Pembroke uses the power of seduction to persuade him to arrange a meeting between the King and Queen.

Their reunion is perhaps the most potent medicine of all. Shocked into the realization that his reign is in jeopardy, the King shaves his scraggly beard, summons his clothing and once again assumes his dignified demeanour. His triumphant arrival at Westminster dispels any and all notions from the cheering crowd that he is less that fit to rule the country.

Or so it seems...
 

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

Disorder and scandal are hardly strangers to the British monarchy. In fact, over two hundred years madness briefly reigned the throne. Award-winning director Nicholas Hytner, who conquered the stage with MISS SAIGON and the recent TONY Award-winning hit CAROUSEL, and writer Alan Bennett have fashioned a poignantly humourous portrait of a King who almost lost his mind and his kingdom.

Hytner, who directed the original production in London at the Royal National Theatre, always believed that the trasition from stage to screen was inevitable, and recalls how the original three-hour script first came to his attention.

"I was immediately grabbed by it," Hytner recalls. "I knew that George III wnet mad, but I didn't know the particular story of the onset of madness and the wonderfully funny and knotted family, governmental and medical crisis that surrounded it."

"I thought that Alan Bennett had pulled off the extraordinary trick of writing an authentic and believeable historical drama with boundless contemporary resonance. It was one of the most touching scripts I have ever read, as well as being one of the funniest."

Nigel Hawthorne, whose versatility has encompassed memorable roles on stage (SHADOWLANDS, for which he received the 1991 TONY Awards as Best Actor), as well as in motion pictures (GAHNDI, TURTLE DIARY, DEMOLITION MAN), portrayed the tormented King George on stage for nearly three years, including a tour of Europe and the United States. He embraced the opportunity to recreate his role on film.

"The role is a bit of a rollercoaster," he admits, "but as I have the experience of having done the play, I do know the journey." When asked what kind of a man King George III really was, Hawthorne replies that "as a King he was a man of the people. I think that he really believed that in order to keep the monarchy it had to be special, and so be inaugurated a lot of court manners, behaviour and protocol. He was an ordinary man who loved farm life and was known as Farmer George. He wasn't extravagant like his eldest son, the Prince of Wales. I think the difference between them was why they argued and fought so much. I think George is rather endearing and I find that very special."

Co-starring with Hawthorne as Queen Charlotte is Helen Mirren, best known to British and American audiences for her Emmy-nominated performance as Inspector Jane Tennison on the series, PRIME SUSPECT.

"In essence," explains Mirren, "the film is about the nature of power and how transitory it can be. I think it is the spirit of Alan Bennett's writing that he combines comedy and tragedy into a very rich drama."

Ian Holm, who received a 1981 Academy Award nomination for his role in CHARIOTS OF FIRE, as well as a TONY nomination for his performance on Broadway in THE HOMECOMING, portrays Dr. Willis, the unconventional psychiatrist who attempts to halt the barbaric treatments forced upon the King by his private doctors.

"He was a quite forceful character and literally bludgeoned his way into getting total power over the King," Holm says. "It wasn't easy for a commoner to approach royalty, but I think it was probably facilitated by the fact that the King actually liked Willis."

It is Dr. Willis who is brought into the royal court on the recommendation of Lady Pembroke, the Queen's Lady in Waiting, portrayed by Amanda Donohoe.

Donohoe, who won a Golden Globe Award for her role as the fiery attornet C. J. Lamb on the television series L. A. Law has also appeared in such motion pictures as Ken Russell's THE RAINBOW and LAIR OF THE WHITE WORM, as well as the made-for-telecision movie, SHAME.

Says Donohoe, "The glory of it's story is that the nature of the King's madness tore down all the veneer of respectability, etiquette and extraordinary extremes of formal behaviour which the royal court were so concerned about. However hard they try, they are unable to keep it together, which is funny as well as being tragic."

A central figure in the royal battle is that of the Prince of Wales, who eagerly seizes the opportunity to capitalize on his father's illness. The part is plyed by Rupert Everett, acclaimed for his performances in such films as DANCE WITH A STRANGER and ANOTHER COUNTRY.

Rounding out the versatile cast is Rupert Graves, who portrays Greville, the King's new equerry. Graves is most recognizeable to motion picture audiences for his roles in A ROOM WITH A VIEW, MAURICE and WHERE ANGELS FEAR TO TREAD, as well as Louis Malle's DAMAGE.

In addition to filming at England's Shepperton Studios, the cast and crew traveled to a variety of locations, including Arundel Castle in West Sussex. The castle, built in the 12th Century, serves as the home of the present Duke of Norfolk, and was used for the exterior scenes at Windsor Castle. The interior Windsor scenes were filmed at Wilton House, the home of the Earl of Pembroke, while the setting for the Queen's royal apartments were filmed in Broughton Castle in Oxfordshire.
 
 

KING GEORGE AND THE "MADNESS"

George III was King of England from 1760 to 1820. During this often tumultuous 60-year reign, England suffered the humiliating loss of the American colonies, while great constitutional battles led to the ascendacy of parliamentary over monarchial power, a process speeded by the crisis of the illness of the King.

Was King George "mad?" Probably not, although he displayed all the symptoms of madness due to "porphyria," a metabolic imbalance that reproduces all the symptoms of mental illness. Combined with the physical debilitation caused by the barbaric treatments of the royal doctors, King George was forever remembered as the "Mad Monarch."

King George III was first ill in 1788. His malady was to recur for short periods throughout the remainder of his life until his death in 1820. It wasn't until much later, with the emergence of Dr. Willis journals and the diaries of Sir George Baker, the first physician to attend the King, that historians were able to piece together the full extent of the King's baffling illness.