King George III does some very odd things, but then who is to argue with the king' Well, his ambitious son, for one. He's not getting any younger, and all he does is sit around waiting for his father to die. So when the king starts behaving like a real madman, the Prince of Wales lobbies Parliament to assign him the power of prince regent. What ensues is a political struggle between the prime minister, a royalist, and the opposition party. In the meantime, the king is slowly being tortured by the strange practices of 18th-century medicine: He is bled regularly, and his feces are analyzed by all manner of doctors. To rectify this atrocity, the king's distressed entourage solicits the aid of a country doctor who's as unsuccessful as his predecessors but a little more humane. When it seems as if he will be forced to abdicate his throne, George III regains his sanity just in time to assure the Parliament that he's able to rule. Directed by Nicholas Hytner and featuring an Oscar-nominated tour-de-force performance from Nigel Hawthorne, THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE is an unforgettable romp through a crucial period in English history.