The King's Speech stage tour brings stammering workshops to Cirencester
A new stage production of The King's Speech is in Cirencester, with workshops to raise stammering awareness and a UK tour to follow next year.
The Full Story
A plain summary built from the channels that reported this story.
A new stage production of The King's Speech is touring the UK with school workshops aimed at raising awareness of stammering. The play is currently being staged in Cirencester. Its workshops, called The Speaking Part, are running alongside the production and are due to follow the show around the UK next year.
The story is already well known from the 2010 film, which starred Colin Firth and won four Oscars. It tells how George VI, the grandfather of the current King, became monarch and prepared to address Britain at the start of the Second World War. George, known as Bertie to those close to him, had a severe stammer. His wife, Queen Elizabeth, persuaded him to see the Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue.
In the stage version, Lionel Logue is played by the Neighbours actor Stefan Dennis. He said attitudes to stammering have changed a great deal since his own school days in the 1960s. He recalled that children who stammered were teased, and that people often did not understand the condition. He said he had learned to have patience.
The King is played by George Rainsford, who has appeared in Casualty and Call the Midwife. He said there is a responsibility to represent stammering accurately and to show it as part of the King's character, not the whole of it. He pointed to George VI's other qualities, including the way he overcame problems with confidence and became a voice for Britain at a critical time.
The workshops are taking place at Cirencester King's Hill School, where pupils met cast members from Neighbours and Casualty, as well as Jessie Rue from The Traitors. Rue, who has a stammer, said the subject is rarely discussed and that she hoped her involvement would raise awareness and give hope to others. Pupils said the sessions had taught them more about what stammering involves. One described it as an internal battle to get words out, rather than simply a struggle to speak.
The workshops are intended to help children understand why people stammer and how to behave around them. The stated aim is simple: to spread the word and give a voice to people who stammer. The production and its workshops will continue around the UK next year.
On screen
Stills are sampled automatically at 60-second intervals. Where shown, the still is the nearest available frame from the relevant broadcast segment and is included to show what was on screen during that part of the broadcast. A still may not correspond to the exact second of a quoted phrase.
Key Claims
Claims reported during this story's coverage, grouped by how many channels reported each one. Select a dot to see the source excerpt.
| Claim |  |
|---|---|
| Only on one channel | |
| A new stage version of The King's Speech is scheduled to tour the UK. | |
| The play is currently being staged in Cirencester. | |
| The production includes educational workshops aimed at helping audiences understand stammering. | |
Channel Perspectives
What each channel focused on, with key quotes.
The channel treated the launch as a human interest arts and education story. It gave most space to the Cirencester workshop, cast interviews and pupils' reactions, while briefly setting out the film's Oscar-winning history and George VI's stammer. The tone was warm and explanatory, with no sceptical or political framing.
- “I hope that if I could get on it that it would just help to push it a little bit more and to raise awareness on it.”
- “I know about what goes on in the head as well, rather than just, it's not just them struggling to speak. It's more like an internal battle to get the words out as well.”
- “I went to school with a couple of kids who stammered, and, you know, back in those days, I'm talking in the 60s, and, you know, they got teased.”
Broadcast Timeline
News broadcasts tracked for this story, in time order.