REVIEW: Coulthard delivers but Donovan is no Lionel Logue in The King’s Speech

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THE bar was always going to be set incredibly high.

As a popular award-winning film, the King’s Speech touched the hearts of millions of people across the globe and after hearing it had been transformed for the stage I for one was expecting good things.

And largely I wasn’t wrong. Director Roxana Silbert’s adaptation was very funny and the use of a simplistic space was clever.

However where the performance let itself down was in the strength of some of the characters. While Raymond Coulthard started off a bit shakily as King George VI, or ‘Bertie’, by the second half he had much more vigour, was commanding the stage more effectively, his stammer was much more believable and the audience was ‘rooting for him’ – if I may be so bold as to use a vulgar Americanism.

The big disappointment for me was in Jason Donovan’s depiction of failed actor and budding speech therapist Lionel Logue. It was always going to be hard to follow fellow Aussie Geoffrey Rush but in my humble opinion – he just wasn’t the man for the job.

His portrayal of Logue lacked conviction and was a bit too soft and nice for what should be such a gruff, no nonsense character.

To be fair to Donovan this is probably as much his fault as it is those who cast him into the role. A big show equals a big star and who’s a famous Australian I wonder?

As an Australian (sort of) myself, I found his accent a tad over the top. If he had suddenly came out with the words ‘flaming galah’ I don’t think anyone would have been surprised.

The bits I most enjoyed were the witty exchanges between Archbishop Cosmo Lang, played by Martin Turner, and Winston Churchill played by Nicholas Blane who both produced some brilliant one liners.

Overall it was a solid performance and very entertaining, if not as good as it could be.

My one and only gripe would be that the planes which descended from the skies at the end were immensely distracting in what was an otherwise captivating delivery by Coulthard of the part the whole night had been building up to, and the part we’d all been waiting for – the King’s speech.

KATHRYN CAIN 4/5

The King’s Speech is on at MK Theatre until Saturday, May 9.

Tickets are available at: http://www.atgtickets.com/shows/the-kings-speech/m…