The Madness of George III

by Alan Bennett

seen by live streaming from Nottingham Playhouse on 5 February 2019

Alan Bennett's 1991 play was revived last year at the Nottingham Playhouse (this screening last night was not, technically, live as it was a repeat, but it was first streamed live late last year). Adam Penford directed Mark Gatiss as George III, Debra Gillett as Queen Charlotte, Adrian Scarborough as Dr Willis, Nicholas Bishop as William Pitt and Wilf Scolding as the Prince of Wales, with a dozen supporting cast. The production was designed by Robert Jones.

The play deals with the personal and political crisis of the king's first bout of madness in 1788/9 (there is a casual reference to the fall of the Bastille towards the end of the play). The imagined personal life of the King and Queen is the main focus, but of course in the eighteenth century the mental incapacity of the monarch had grave political repercussions, especially considering the discord between the King and the Prince of Wales (dismayingly referred to by the Queen only as 'the Son'). Generally the opposition party tended to support the current Prince of Wales throughout the eighteenth century as some sort of Royal patronage was essential to political success; the modern idea of the 'loyal opposition' was in its infancy.

Committee

music by Tom Deering, book and lyrics by Hadley Fraser and Josie Rourke

seen at the Donmar Warehouse on 12 August 2017

Committee, or, to give it its full title, 'The Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee takes Oral Evidence on Whitehall's Relationship with Kids Company', is an eighty-minute sung account of one day's evidence given to the PACA Committee, edited from the published transcript of the enquiry, directed by Adam Penford. Five MPs assisted by two clerks question Alan Yentob, played by Omar Ebrahim, the chairman of the trustees of Kids Company, and  Camila Batmanghelidjh, played by Sandra Marvin, the chief executive and founder of the charity.

The charity was set up in the 1990s to help disadvantaged and neglected children in poverty, and its CEO was a dominant and charismatic personality who was able for many years to garner sufficient funding for its somewhat controversial methodologies. However by 2015 serious concerns were surfacing about its financial viability and probity, especially as it was in receipt of several million pounds' worth of government funding, which was still being given despite official warnings that it was inappropriate to do so. Eventually the Chief Executive was dismissed, but this gesture was too late to save the charity, and at very short notice it was closed, its staff suddenly unemployed, and many young people and their families who had become dependent on it left unsupported.