Thus when it came to celebrate five years of the Programme, we could think of no better way of doing so than returning to this subject. This is especially significant as the Georgian Papers Programme has now made the relevant medical papers, held in the Royal Archives at Windsor Castle, publicly available for the first time as part of its digitization programme. In conjunction with critical contemporary public attention to mental health, this collaboration set the GPP team thinking more generally about George III’s mental health. Some images of documents which transformed into props allowed the actors to hold the very items mentioned in the text in their hands. The GPP also provided a contextual programme note written by Arthur Burns and fellow academic director, Karin Wulf, and a pre-show talk in Nottingham. The visit itself was recorded and featured prominently in a short film shown before the live relay of the production as part of NTLive! to venues in more than 65 countries across the world. This was followed by a visit by the leading actor in the production, Mark Gatiss to Windsor Castle to view an exhibition of documents associated with George and his illness, later mounted online as The Madness of George III Explored : An Exhibition for Mark Gatiss. The GPP arranged a briefing for the director and cast in rehearsal from one of the academic directors of the programme, Arthur Burns, and Sir Simon Wessely, professor of psychological medicine at King’s College London. This event built in turn on the very successful 2018 collaboration between the Georgian Papers Programme, Nottingham Playhouse and NTLive! around the Playhouse’s production of Alan Bennett’s play The Madness of George III.

Mark Gatiss in the Nottingham Playhouse production of The Madness of George III.

The madness of george iii play