Royal regret

Here he comes. Royalty’s favourite crackpot is back. Alan Bennett’s trusty drama, The Madness of George III, doesn’t really have a plot, just a pathology. The king is fine, he then goes barmy, he stays barmy for a bit, he gets bashed about by sadistic healers, then he recovers. It’s less a play and more a monologue amplified by a cast of glove puppets.

Each supporting character is given, at most, two attributes. William Pitt drinks and keeps his counsel. The queen snorts and whinnies like a German weightlifter. Pious equerries proclaim their loyalty. Various doctors wheedle and pontificate. The Prince of Wales, an overdressed slob, waddles in and out sounding greedy. The aristocratic Lady Pembroke trundles around like a wax cleavage in a noose of pearls. And Charles James Fox, one of the most flamboyant figures in English history, is reduced to a posh simpleton with a beer gut.