The Crown dealt with one of most sensitive eras of the Royal Family – and I found it harrowing
Love it or hate it, Netflix has given viewers an early Christmas present this weekend.
For fans there are six more new episodes of The Crown to binge-watch, featuring all your favourite characters: Charles, Philip, Wills, Anne, Diana, Margaret, The Queen and more.
Those who denounce the series as a deplorable and inaccurate intrusion into the private lives of the British Royal Family can celebrate that this is the finale. After six series and a total of 60 episodes beginning in November 2016, it’s over.
It seemed appropriate that this cheeky exercise in lese majeste made its first appearance shortly after the Brexit referendum which overturned so many establishment norms, allegedly shared by the nation’s elite.
The seeds which germinated into The Crown were actually planted earlier in 1997, with two events which also transformed Britain’s view of itself and the world’s view of us, both of which also drive the narrative of series six: the election of Tony Blair’s New Labour government and the death of Princess Diana.
The Crown has been one of the major television events of the past decade.
The quality of its scripts, acting and production have made it superbly entertaining, while perhaps a guilty pleasure for British audiences, His or Her Majesty’s subjects.
Inevitably The Crown is remoulding how the public views the monarchy, to the fury of its critics who insist that it is made-up fiction even though it is about real people and actual events, all within the lived experience of many of its viewers.
Stephen Frears, probably Britain’s greatest living director, takes the credit or blame for kicking off the trend in reality drama.
Peter Morgan, The Crown’s creator, wrote the script for The Deal, Frears’ 2003 TV movie about the so-called Granita pact between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown over the Labour leadership.
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Morgan and Frears then made the film, The Queen, about the aftermath of Diana’s death, with Helen Mirren winning an Oscar in the title role and Michael Sheen continuing as Blair. One of the challenges for Morgan, who initially expressed doubts about going ahead with the current series six, has been going over the same events concerning Dodi Fayed and Diana for a second time.
Morgan specialises in making drama out of the challenges faced by real people of influence including David Frost, President Nixon, Bill Clinton, Freddie Mercury and the anti-porn campaigner Lord Longford.
After The Queen, his successful stage play The Audience, was effectively a dry run for The Crown, imagining Elizabeth II’s weekly private encounters with numerous prime ministers during her long reign.
William, Charles and Harry in The Crown. Pic: Justin Downing/Netflix
Reviewing the Crown finale, The Guardian’s critic Jack Seale identified “the overriding theme… that has underpinned Peter Morgan’s scripts all along: a life of public service, we are told, is a burden that demands great personal sacrifice, with the main loss being one’s happiness”.
This certainly colours the portrayal of the main male members of the Royal Family.
Charles, the late Duke of Edinburgh, and William are treated with more sympathy and understanding of their dilemmas than is commonplace in commentary about them.
“You do sort of fight for your guy,” Dominic West who plays Charles told Kate McCann and I on Times Radio, adding: “You give your character the benefit of the doubt”.
Prince Harry and Prince William in The Crown Pic: Justin Downing/Netflix
Sir Jonathan Pryce, who takes the role of Prince Philip, agreed: “I talked to the carriage driving people I trained with and they all absolutely loved him.”
As a viewer I found the interactions between the three men in the months after William’s loss of his mother, depicted in episode five, harrowing to watch. One of Dominic West’s sons played the role of William in the last series but, he told us: “I was glad my son wasn’t playing in this season just because of the very heavy nature.”
There has already been much comment about Morgan’s decision to bring back Diana and Dodi Fayed from the dead to speak briefly to other characters as ghosts in the early episodes of this final series.
In my opinion this was done tastefully and helped with the exposition of the narrative. Perhaps I am being indulgent because of my own small part in what The Guardian identifies as “the riskiest moment in the new episodes, a dream sequence in which the Queen imagines her reign being ended by the new king, Tony Blair”.
At the coronation, choristers sing an eerie a cappella version of Things Can Only Get Better.
Dominic West as Prince Charles and Olivia Williams as Camilla. Pic: Justin Downing/Netflix
Her Majesty’s nightmare is shown as a news bulletin item – voiced by me.
Other broadcasters are heard in the series often reporting events which really happened. My few lines in The Crown are fantasy to a purpose. I have also played versions of my broadcast persona on Spooks and in several other TV series and on screen in a touring theatrical production.
Of my old colleagues, Bob Friend played a newscaster in Mission Impossible and Jeremy Thompson reported in Volcano and Shaun Of The Dead. I also seem to remember Andrew Marr popping up outside Downing Street in an episode of Doctor Who.
In each appearance we were lending what credibility we have as real-life journalists to make a fiction seem more realistic. This is of a piece with the criticisms of The Crown for turning the real Royal Family into TV drama.
Kate Middleton in The Crown Pic: Justin Downing/Netflix
Such moonlighting is fun but worth thinking about before you commit to doing it. For me, it all depends on the quality of the show. I admire The Crown and Peter Morgan’s work for its insight into issues of the day.
The series has also had very high production values throughout. I defy anyone not to be impressed by the magnificence and the wit of the Blair coronation scenes. I’m glad I lent my voice to them.
Through the six series the royals have been played by a succession of actors, not always to the taste of some Royalists.
When Olivia Coleman took over from Claire Foy as the Queen, Baron Charles Moore of Etchingham famously took to the pages of The Spectator to complain that she had a “left-wing face”.
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The surviving members of the real Royal Family have stuck to protocol wisely and not commented about the way The Crown has depicted them. Their fictional avatars have been shown characters sensitively in the round and have probably increased public understanding of them.
At a preview screening of some episodes, one member of the audience leant over to Sir Jonathan Pryce commenting: “That’s the Royal Family saved for another 50 years then.”
Having played Prince Philip – “a wonderful father and grandfather, apart from Charles” – Pryce is more measured: “If we are going to have a Royal Family, I think this one with Charles and William is a good one to have.”
Entertainment
Bob Vylan on ‘death, death to the IDF’ chant: ‘I’d do it again tomorrow, twice on Sundays’
Bob Vylan’s frontman has said he does not regret chanting “death, death to the IDF” at Glastonbury – and would do it again.
The outspoken punk duo sparked controversy with their performance at the festival in June, with the broadcast also leading to fierce criticism of the BBC.
But speaking on The Louis Theroux podcast, Bobby Vylan said he stood by the chant, adding: “I’d do it again tomorrow, twice on Sundays.”
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The US condemned the act’s “hateful tirade” and revoked their visas, with several festivals cancelling their upcoming appearances.
Vylan claimed this backlash is “minimal” compared with what the people of Palestine are going through – with many losing members of their family or forced to flee their homes.
He said: “If I have their support, they’re the people that I’m doing it for, they’re the people that I’m being vocal for, then what is there to regret. Oh, because I’ve upset some right-wing politician or some right-wing media?”
The musician revealed he was taken aback by the uproar caused by the chant, which was described by the prime minister as “appalling hate speech”.
Vylan added: “It wasn’t like we came off stage, and everybody was like (gasps). It’s just normal. We come off stage. It’s normal. Nobody thought anything. Nobody. Even staff at the BBC were like: ‘That was fantastic! We loved that!'”
A spokesperson at Mindhouse Productions – which was founded by Theroux and produces The Louis Theroux podcast – told Sky News: “Louis is a journalist with a long history of speaking to controversial figures who may divide opinion. We would suggest people watch or listen to the interview in its entirety to get the full context of the conversation.”
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‘The response was disproportionate’
The BBC’s Executive Complaints Unit has since found that the broadcast of Bob Vylan’s set breached editorial standards related to harm and offence.
Theroux asked Vylan what he meant by chanting “death to the IDF” – with the musician replying: “It’s so unimportant, and the response to it was so disproportionate.
“What is important is the conditions that exist to allow that chant to even take place on that stage. And I mean, the conditions that exist in Palestine. Where the Palestinian people are being killed at an alarming rate.”
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Pic: PA
He said he wanted an end to the oppression that the Palestinian people are facing – but argued chanting “end, end the IDF” wouldn’t have caught on because it doesn’t rhyme.
“We are there to entertain, we are there to play music,” Vylan added. “I am a lyricist. ‘Death, death to IDF’ rhymes. Perfect chant.”
He went on to reject claims that their set had contributed to a spike in antisemitic incidents that were reported a couple of days later.
“I don’t think I have created an unsafe atmosphere for the Jewish community. If there were large numbers of people going out and going like ‘Bob Vylan made me do this’. I might go, ‘oof, I’ve had a negative impact here’.”
Vylan’s conversation with Theroux was recorded on 1 October – before the Manchester synagogue attack, and prior to the ceasefire in Gaza coming into effect.
Entertainment
Gavin Plumb: Man jailed for plotting to rape and murder Holly Willoughby loses appeal against life sentence
A security guard jailed for plotting to kidnap, rape and murder TV star Holly Willoughby has lost an appeal against his life sentence.
Gavin Plumb was sentenced to life with a minimum term of 16 years last year after being convicted of soliciting murder and encouraging or assisting others to rape and kidnap.
A trial at Chelmsford Crown Court heard that police found bottles of chloroform and an “abduction kit” with cable ties when officers raided the 38-year-old’s flat in Harlow, Essex.
Plumb’s kidnap plan involved attempting to “ambush” Willoughby at her family home, jurors heard.
Plumb argued in his defence that it was just online chat and fantasy.
Police believed Plumb was an ‘imminent threat’ to Holly Willoughby. Pic: PA
He was caught after an undercover police officer in the US infiltrated an online group called Abduct Lovers.
He told the officer, who used the pseudonym David Nelson, that he was “definitely serious” about his plot to kidnap the former This Morning host, leaving him with the impression that there was an “imminent threat” to Willoughby.
Due to the officer’s concern over Plumb’s post, evidence was passed to the FBI, who then contacted police in the UK.
Willoughby, who asked for her victim personal statement to be private, waived her right to anonymity in connection with the charge against Plumb of assisting or encouraging rape.
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Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs is appealing the conviction handed down to him earlier this year over prostitution charges relating to his former girlfriends and male sex workers.
The music mogul was given a 50-month sentence and a $500,000 fine for flying people around the US and abroad for sexual encounters, including his then-girlfriend and male sex workers, in violation of prostitution laws.
He was cleared of more serious charges of racketeering conspiracy and sex-trafficking that could have put him in jail for life.
The two-page formal notice of appeal, seen by Sky News, was filed in Manhattan federal court on Monday, confirming he will be challenging both his conviction and his sentence.
It lists Combs’s defence council as Alexandra A E Shapiro, and shows a $605 (£450) docketing fee was paid to lodge the formal notice.
More detailed filings are expected to follow.
On the day of sentencing in early October the rapper’s lawyers had signalled they intended to appeal.
Combs, 55, has been in custody since his arrest last year.
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His seven-week trial earlier this year included four days of testimony from Cassie, now Cassie Ventura Fine, who told the court she was coerced and sometimes blackmailed into sexual encounters with male sex workers, referred to as “freak offs”.
Jurors were also shown video clips of Combs dragging and beating her in a Los Angeles hotel hallway after one of those sessions in 2016.
Ahead of the sentencing, Cassie also submitted a letter to the judge, calling Combs a “manipulator” and saying she would fear for her safety should he be immediately released.
Diddy and Cassie at the premiere for a film she starred in, just days after the 2016 hotel incident. Pic: zz/Galaxy/STAR MAX/IPx/ AP
Ahead of his sentencing, Combs told the court he admitted his past behaviour was “disgusting, shameful and sick”, and apologised personally to Cassie Ventura and “Jane”, another former girlfriend who testified anonymously during the trial.
He told the court he’d got “lost in my excess and lost in my ego”, but since his time in prison he has been “humbled and broken to my core,” adding “I hate myself right now… I am truly sorry for it all.”
Judge Arun Subramanian, who had rejected bail for the rapper several times before sentencing, told him that he would get through his time in prison and would still “have a life afterwards,” calling it “a chance for renewal and redemption”.
He was facing a maximum of 20 years in prison for the prostitution-related charges, so the sentence was towards the lower end of the scale.
Prosecutors had argued he should spend at least 11 years behind bars, while Combs’s lawyers had called for him to be freed almost immediately due to time already served since his arrest just over a year ago.
Sky News has contacted Combs’s lawyers for comment.
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