The Crown

Slight reservations about the massive Netflix series THE CROWN, Series 1 is now a 4 dvd pack (10 one-hour long episodes), as they film Series 2.  One can see the quality and the interesting casting, but it moves at a slow pace and Buckingham Palace seems a very gloomy, dark place, with all those older ministers and courtiers - but I presume thats how the Fifties are perceived now.

Stealing the show four episodes in is the venerable Dame Eileen Atkins as Queen Mary, a role she has played a few times. Claire Foy and Matt Smith are growing into their roles, but will be replaced by older actors as the decades pass .... John Lithgow is a terrific Churchill, and there's Jeremy Northam (Anthony Eden), Greg Wise (Lord Mountbatten), Harriet Walter (Lady Churchill) and more, who capture the essence of their characters, without being lookalikes. Victoria Hamilton is a perfect Queen Mother, but Jared Harris seems all wrong as George VI (it begins with him coughing up blood, while drinking more whiskey and endlessly smoking, and shooting wildlife. The very busy Alex Jennings would be much better here, but he plays the brother who abdicated. Showing the coronation scene mainly through his eyes is genius. Vanessa Kirby looks like being an ideal Princess Margaret too.

Surely though Princess Elizabeth knew she would always be queen and was trained to step into her father's shoes, so why all the nervous stares and looking like a scared rabbit in the early scenes. The marriage in 1947 and the births of her first two children (surely important events for her) are glossed over too. Still, there will be a lot to cover ... television costume drama at its best then, these early episodes are directed by Stephen Daldry and its written by Peter Morgan (THE QUEEN). Its certainly better than the risible VICTORIA!

Series 2 starting next month continues from 1956 so we should see a lot more of Margaret once she meets Tony Armstrong Jones.

Above: the Royal Family at Windsor Royal Lodge, by Herbert James Gunn, 1950.