I can forgive the new series of The Crown for “jazzing up the facts”, says Stephen Bates in The Guardian. My complaint is the “clunky” writing. Characters “go round telling one another what they must already know”: in one conversation, Prince Charles talks about John Major’s upbringing in “Brixton, a multicultural working-class part of London”. This “little exposition” is presumably intended for US viewers, who don’t know “Brixton from Balmoral”. It’s a wonder the scriptwriters didn’t have Major reply: “Cor blimey, guv – you got me bang to rights!”
In another exchange, Prince Philip tells Diana: “I’ve always had a soft spot for you… maybe because you are a beautiful woman.” Hold on – Philip may have sent her “sympathetic” letters, but this sounds like something from a Mills & Boon novel. Worst of the lot is the scene depicting the Queen sobbing after reading a Sunday Times poll suggesting she should abdicate – we all know Her Maj preferred The Sunday Telegraph. At a Golden Jubilee event, she summoned over its editor Dominic Lawson. Expecting to be congratulated for the paper’s recent redesign, he was instead asked “where he had moved the crossword to because she couldn’t find it”.