Wisten to the Weal King's Speech from The King's Speech
Thank goodness for the BBC Archives. Unearthed in conjunction with the release of The King's Speech comes the actual climax of the film (spoiler?): King George IV's country-rallying speech on the eve of World War II in 1939. How does the famously public-speaking-averse king sound on these dusty recordings? Like some combination of Tweety Bird and Bill Nighy at the beginning of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, naturally!
As the BBC notes, even with the help of speech therapist Lionel Logue, King George IV still had quite a bit of trouble with the famous speech, and the letter R in particular. Their transcription: "In this gwave [grave] hour... perhaps... the most fateful in our histowy [history], I send... to evewy household of my people both at home and overseas... this message."
Oh, stop laughing! For what it's worth, the 1939 speech is a great improvement from the king's speech at a Scotland exhibition opening the year prior, when he could barely make it through without his stammer reaching awkward-eye-hiding proportions.
Sadly, the audio is not embeddable, but click here to listen.
· The King's Speech: Royal broadcasts in the BBC archives [BBC]
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Comments
OK First of all the title Wisten to the Weal King's speech is completely disrespectful! I think this man had so much courage in the face of adversity i.e. the fact that his elder (shallow) brother decided to ditch his responsibilites and leave his younger brother to take charge knowing nothing and not being trained for becoming king of England and having a speech impediment. He is a wonderful example of over-coming adversity and accepting his duties as King of England.
A wonderful man!
Thank you for that post! Not only is it disrespectful but also completely insensitive to those who experience speech/language impairments. As an SLP, this title really offended me!