Information for The King's Speech at The Watermill Theatre, Newbury (Play). Bertie, the Duke of York, was never meant to be King. Shy, fragile, afflicted with profound stuttering, his occasional public speeches were a torment to himself and worse to those forced to listen. When his older brother David, now Edward VIII, abdicates his throne in exchange for the bed of a twice divorced American with Nazi sympathies, Bertie s wife Elizabeth turns to a Harley Street speech therapist from Australia: Lionel Logue. What transpires in the privacy of Logue s consultation room is the heart of this drama. Can Bertie, the reluctant King, be ?cured to get through his Coronation, and even more daunting, speak via the BBC to anxious millions throughout the world, rallying the troops, a nation, and an Empire to defend democracy? At the crucial moment comes the disclosure that Logue is not what he seems. Carefully researched, this is the true story of a friendship that changed history.