THE CROWN: ENDGAME. SEASON 6 released 14 DECEMBER. Richard Fitzwilliams, royal commentator and film critic, also lectures on the portrayal of royals on screen and is available 07939602749 www.richardfitzwilliams.com @RFitzwilliams
This series has been dogged by controversy. The publicity states it is a “fictional dramatization” based on real events. This disclaimer should be placed before each episode, but sadly is not. Many viewers think what they see is fact. Much of it is anything but.
It has been a huge commercial success and has won numerous awards. Its creator, Peter Morgan, has called it a “love letter” to Queen Elizabeth when she died. It is one that the royal family could do without as most of it is an unflinchingly harsh portrayal of the monarchy.
Morgan’s deft handling of royal matters and of politics was shown in The Queen and The Audience. He also had successes in Frost/Nixon, The Deal and The Last King of Scotland. However, his interviews about The Crown have been erratic. One must, he said, “never desert truth”. He has, throughout, especially in the tasteless episode featuring the death of Prince Philip’s sister Cecile in 1937..
The first two seasons featured Claire Foy as the young Queen Elizabeth, combining shyness with dedication to duty, a superb performance. She was supported by John Lithgow as a splendid Churchill, Alex Jennings who is marvellous as a duplicitous Duke of Windsor and Jared Harris who is deeply moving as George V1. The production values have been amazing throughout.
Why did the series go so wrong? One reason was the miscasting of two of our top actresses, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton, as Queen Elizabeth, as neither resembled her or sounded like her and both played her as cold, aloof and out of touch. Morgan sees the royals as a form of Mafia, untrustworthy, snobbish and duplicitous. This is continued in the lacklustre last six episodes, though Jonathan Pryce is superb as Prince Philip and Imelda Staunton makes a valiant effort with the accent.
The omission of Princess Anne’s courage during the attempted kidnapping in 1974 and the Queen’s sang-froid when under fire at Trooping the Colour in 1981 speak volumes. Why is Camillagate not Squidygate shown, why is the television film The Royal Family branded a failure, the so called “Balmoral Test where Prime Ministers can be humiliated as Margaret Thatcher is here, is utter rubbish. Sir John Major and Dame Judi Dench have publicly weighed in on how it twists facts.
Ther are compensations. Both Vanessa Kirby and Helena Bonham Carter are excellent as Princess Margaret. Emma Corrin’s shy, knowing Diana convincingly morphs into Elizabeth Debicki glamorous and caring but careless and unhappy, much as she was. However the script in Season 5 was banal in parts and the device of using Diana and Dodi’s ghosts was tasteless tripe.
This is monarchy as a soap opera, it should have meaning, several of the early episodes did. It then, with the diabolically insensitive portrayals of Prince Philip (before Jonathan Pryce) and the Queen Mother and Charles, as played by Josh O’Connor as a selfish juvenile, made the royals dreadful villains. There is supposed to be a price for the privilege of wearing the crown and being royal, when the world sees you portrayed in this, there is. For all the money lavished on it, it is rarely convincing and also portrays events too close to today.
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It can't be ''monarchy as soap opera', because the British monarchy already is a soap opera, one paid for not with ads, but with tourism receipts. 'The Crown' is good for business because it brings the myth to new, younger audiences around the world. But I agree the later series weren't as good as the earlier ones, partly because the 'meaning' you seek - that of the Royals as exemplary people, role models for all - has almost completely vanished as the real-life family has lurched from one moral crisis to the next. It's very hard to write, let alone play, villains as heroes. And yet, the modern story of the house of Windsor is essentially one of cowardice, duplicity, adultery, and even (whisper it) corruption. (I may be hanged for this.)
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John It depends which members of the royal family you are thinking of. The Queen was exemplary, as was her father. The Waleses are the future and handle things well. The Princess Royal dies excellent low key work. But Morgan did well with The Queen, on screen and The Audience, on stage. The first two seasons (save for the Prince Philip episode with his sister) were in the same vein. They aren’t monsters from the Mafia, fallible to be sure, there is the soap opera aspect of it but the world does watch. Also the ceremonial is superb. The constitutional role is interesting, this one can debate. Can you think of a better use of soft power?