Even though he was king during the time of England’s greatest troubles, King George VI tends to be overshadowed by his older brother, the famously abdicating and fascist-leaning King Edward, his long-reigning daughter, the present Queen Elizabeth II who’s been on top since 1952, amazingly enough, and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who actually ran the government during the war. Maybe one reason George VI is so little discussed today is that he didn’t exactly have a natural flair for public speaking.

And therein lies the tale that won the audience award a couple of weeks back at the Toronto International Film Festival and which may well be a player at Oscar time because, like so many of us, the Academy are suckers for English accents.

I admit it, I’m eat this stuff up with a spoon. Great cast led by the ever-better Colin Firth and an impish Geoffrey Rush, interesting topic — stuttering is still a difficult to solve problem for sufferers — probable poignant feel-good conclusion and what appears to be just a bit of cinematic imagination and some really great looking period detail. My cinematic Anglophilia is officially on high alert.