Casualty star George Rainsford confirms next role after 40th anniversary return

Casualty star George Rainsford has been confirmed for a new role weeks after he returned for the medical drama's 40th anniversary double bill.

Rainsford, who reprised the role of Ethan Hardy in the BBC series earlier this month, is set to play the lead role in the UK tour of The King's Speech, also starring Neighbours star Stefan Dennis.

Directed by Loveday Ingram, the stage play by David Seidler is based on the Oscar-winning 2010 film of the same name starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush as King George VI and his speech therapist Lionel Logue.

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Taking to the stage this year as George VI and Logue are Rainsford and Dennis, with the production also starring Rosanna Miles as Queen Elizabeth, Lucy Bromilow in the dual role of Myrtle Logue and Wallis Simpson, Tim Hudson as King George V/Winston Churchill, Ian Kirby as Archbishop Cosmo Lang, and Mark Hammersley as King Edward VIII/Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.

After playing at the Barn Theatre in Cirencester between 9 October and 7 November, The King's Speech kicks off its UK tour in January 2027.

The tour will stop in Oxford, Coventry, Cheltenham, Clwyd, Darlington, Blackpool, Bath, Guildford, Aberdeen, Nottingham, Windsor, Eastbourne, Leicester, Bromley, Wolverhampton, Southend, Salisbury, Sheffield, Winchester, Northampton, Carlisle, Ipswich, Cambridge, Liverpool and Malvern.

Find tickets here.

The synopsis for the play teases "a country on the precipice of another terrible war" as 1930s England finds a new king in "shy" Bertie after Edward's abdication.

"With the future of the monarchy, and Britain itself, on the line, an historic radio address looms over a man who can barely stammer through full sentences," the synopsis reads.

"Desperate, Bertie and his family turn to an unconventional speech therapist from Australia to turn him into the king Britain can believe in," the synopsis continues, as the two men forge "an unlikely but deeply meaningful friendship".

The King's Speech debuts at the Barn Theatre in Cirencester this October, with a UK tour starting on 13 January 2027. Tickets are available through the play's website.

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