A roll call of British acting talent has been added to the cast list of The King's Speech, a drama about George VI's struggles to overcome his stammer. Already on board were Colin Firth as the reluctant monarch, who was pushed on to the throne after the 1936 abdication crisis, and Geoffrey Rush as Lionel Logue, the unorthodox Australian speech therapist who helped him.
As the second son of George V, the shy prince universally known as Bertie was the spare to the heir and seemed destined to lead a quiet life. But when his brother David, who was crowned as Edward VIII, chose to abdicate to marry Wallis Simpson, Bertie was thrust into the spotlight. However, with the help of Logue, he not only overcame his speech impediment, but gained confidence and helped to rally the country during the second world war.
Variety reports that Firth and Rush will be joined by Helena Bonham Carter as Bertie's wife, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, Michael Gambon as his father, George V, Timothy Spall as Winston Churchill and Derek Jacobi as Dr Cosmo Lang, the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Jennifer Ehle, Firth's one-time co-star in BBC TV's Pride and Prejudice, will play Logue's wife, Myrtle, while Guy Pearce will play Edward VIII.
The film began shooting in the UK late last week under director Tom Hooper, who scored a major success last year with football biopic The Damned United. Hooper has something of a golden touch when it comes to dramatising historical characters: also in his CV are the multi-award-winning HBO miniseries John Adams, as well as Channel 4's Longford and Elizabeth I, with Helen Mirren. Next on his plate are adaptations of John Steinbeck's East of Eden and Nelson Mandela's memoir, The Long Walk to Freedom.
The Weinstein Company, who will distribute the film in North America, must be hoping some of Hooper's awards mojo will rub off on The King's Speech. The company has had to let go of almost half its staff and reduce its slate of releases in recent months. It did, however, win the bidding war over Tom Ford's A Single Man, which also stars Colin Firth.
• This article was amended on 24 November 2009. The original said that Tom Ford's film was titled A Serious Man. This has been corrected.
