A royal mess.
Season Five of Netflix’s The Crown is set to air on November 9th. But ahead of its premiere, there has been lots of drama surrounding the historical accuracy.
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First, former Prime Minister John Major criticized a scene in the show as a “barrel-load of nonsense.” Now, Dame Judi Dench has gotten involved with a letter to the show, calling it “cruel.”
Judi Dench knows a thing or two about the royal family.
She is a Dame, after all. The eight-time Oscar nominee joined the Order of the British Empire in 1970 and became a Dame in 1988. In addition to this, she is one of the Members of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH).
She has played royal roles before.
She won the Academy Award for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth I in Shakespeare In Love. Most notably, she played M in James Bond , a franchise that the late Queen Elizabeth II had a cameo in.
So when the Dame has something to say about the royal family, people listen.
Most recently, she wrote a letter to The Times , blasting Netflix for the “crude sensationalism” and “inaccurate and harmful account of history” on the royal-themed series, The Crown .
According to Netflix, the show is “inspired by real events, this fictional dramatization tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II and the political and personal events that shaped her reign.”
Judi’s letter comes after former Prime Minister John Major called out a scene in the upcoming season.
He called the scene of Prince Charles (Dominic West) lobbying the PM to force his mother’s abdication a “barrel-load of nonsense.”
Strong words. Judi took this further with her letter, writing, “Sir John Major is not alone in his concerns that the latest series of The Crown will present an inaccurate and hurtful account of history.”
“Indeed, the closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism.”
She sent a call to action to the streaming service, urging them to add a disclaimer to the beginning of episodes.
Her fear is that audiences won’t understand that the show’s depiction of events isn’t historically sound.
“While many will recognise The Crown for the brilliant but fictionalised account of events that it is, I fear that a significant number of viewers, particularly overseas, may take its version of history as being wholly true,” she wrote.
“This is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent.”
Like Major, she, too, called out the abdication scene. She also slammed the show’s unflattering depiction of Queen Elizabeth II’s parenting. After the death of the Queen, she doesn’t want her memory to be sullied.
“No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged,” Dench continued.
“Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a ‘fictionalised drama’ the programme makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.”
The Dame concluded her letter by showing respect to the late monarch.
“The time has come for Netflix to reconsider — for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve its reputation in the eyes of its British subscribers,” Dench wrote.
Netflix has since responded by refusing to add the disclaimer.
“We have always presented ‘The Crown’ as a drama – and we have every confidence our members understand it’s a work of fiction that’s broadly based on historical events. As a result we have no plans — and see no need — to add a disclaimer.”
