If Nigel Hawthorne had never done anything else in cinema, his performance as the 'mad' George Ill would be sufficient to earn him immortality. It is a part he might have been born to play ...

But life for the king was far from idyllic. George's first attack of madness --actually the rare blood disorder porphyria, which caused severe abdominal pain, extreme perspiration, dark red urine ...

If you want to get on in life, there’s things you have to ignore so you can keep on.

His innovative success with the mentally ill led to him being summoned when King George III first displayed symptoms of apparent madness in 1788. When Dr Willis was first called, he encountered ...