WHEN actor Jonathan Hyde took to the Theatre Royal stage earlier this week, one audience member had a more-than-usual insight into the character he played.

Mr Hyde plays maverick Australian speech Therapist Lionel Logue in the stage version of The King's Speech, the true story of the man who helped King George VI overcome a profound stammer.

The film version starring Colin Firth and Geoffrey Rush was feted with awards last year.

In the audience this week was Robert Logue, Lionel Logue's grandson.

"It was very well acted," Mr Logue said of the play. "Mr Hyde was a good actor – he's going to be a fine actor, I think.

"It was very different from the film – in the film it comes straight out and hits you.

"With the play you've got to get into it."

While the film drops the viewer immediately into the speech troubles of a king by showing him labouring through a speech at Wembley, the play takes a more subtle approach.

In other respects though, play and film follow a similar path.

Both depict the king being drawn out of his speech impediment by what would then have been completely new methods – not to mention some decidedly aggressive and non-Royal language.

As in the film, Lionel Logue is in the play depicted as an outspoken rebel from a far corner of the Commonwealth.

It makes for a great story – even if it doesn't quite stack up to the memories Mr Logue has of his grandfather from boyhood.

The film and play don't portray him exactly as he was, but that's fine.

"He was very Victorian, really," Mr Logue said. "He wasn't really the rambunctious larrikin everyone saw in the play.

"It's a little bit of artistic license, as it's bound to have."

That said, the relationship at the heart of the play is depicted faithfully.

"That's what happened," he said. "He became a great friend of the king.

"When they were alone, they really were good chums."

Of course they were also two men of a bygone age, and outward displays of friendship between king and other were not done.

Likewise, Mr Logue said that in later years his grandfather rarely spoke of his time with the king.

His grandson knew him in a different period of his life. Lionel Logue died in 1952, when Robert was a boy.

"He was a grandfather, an old man," Mr Logue recalled.

"Seventy seemed positively prehistoric then."

Mr Logue, 69, was the only member of the family to see it on Monday.

His sister Alex had been scheduled to attend as well, but had to travel to New York.

They will travel to see it next Monday in Bath.

The King's Speech runs until Saturday at the Theatre Royal. Performances are at 7:30pm, and there is a 2.30pm matinee on Saturday. Tickets are £13-£27.50 and can be purchased at trch.co.uk, on 0115 989 5500 or in person at the Theatre Royal box office.