Somehow it goes without saying what The King’s Speech is. As a film, it has been praised beyond all measure, possibly to the point of creating world peace and allowing all people to unscrew pickle jar lids without asking someone else. It’s received countless nominations, including today, 12 oscar nominations. Oscar thought it was good too.

The issue I often have with such wide-ranging praise is that expectations are often raised to the point of people vomiting with joy and therefore it can never be as good as what people make it out to be. It’s almost as if there is an air of suspicion which hangs around like a bad smell.

The film opens on Prince Albert, played by that bloke who everyone likes from Bridget Jones’s Diary, the grand old Duke of York, son of King George V, brother to someone else, opener of jam jars etc etc… prepares to speak at the closing of the 1925 Empire Exhibition at Wembley Stadium, with his wife Elizabeth (or the Queen Mum if we’re going to keep to explaining historical characters in detail, oh and she is played by an actress who once uttered in Fight Club “I’ve not been f**ked like that since grade school!” I’m not saying that is a bad thing.) by his side.

His stammering speech visibly unsettles the thousands of listeners in the audience, almost as if he was raping a cat right in front of a child, and a scene setting opener if you ever wanted one.

We then cut to some speech therapy in progress, in which after failing to do an impression of Marlon Brando from the Godfather by stuffing balls into his mouth and smoking, Albert says bugger it all and vows to do nothing further to sort out his problems.
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