Comment LONDON — Is the made-up version of “The Crown” bad for the real version of the crown? The timing of Wednesday’s season premiere is fortuitous for Netflix: Interest in the British monarchy is high after the recent death of an iconic queen and the entry of the longest-serving heir-in-waiting. But it’s also hugely inconvenient for King Charles III, who is trying to set the tone for his reign, just as the TV show revisits some of the most painful chapters of his life, reminding viewers that he was once a villain, sad husband bad, sad marriage. For an American audience, “The Crown” is entertainment. In Britain, there is a sense that more is at stake. Netflix added a “fantasy drama” tag. But these characters are the faces of the coin. These plots feed into the country’s sense of history and its own. And unlike the early seasons that featured historical figures like World War II leader Winston Churchill, many of the characters portrayed in season five are still very much alive. It matters for the future of the monarchy and its ability to project soft power to the world if Charles is treated as a madman. Review: ‘The Crown’, as good as ever, may change your mind about Charles and Diana While Queen Elizabeth II was widely adored, Charles is merely liked — by 44 percent of the British public. The rest are neutral to hostile. The new season of “The Crown” is being broadcast around the world at a time when Charles and Camilla want to establish themselves as king and queen [consort] — It couldn’t be a worse time,” said Anna Whitelock, professor of the history of the monarchy at City University of London. Former prime ministers think. John Major called the show a “barrel of nonsense”. A frustrated Tony Blair has dismissed plot points in the new season as “complete and rubbish”. Historians and royal biographers, meanwhile, disagree about the show’s depictions and the significance of its messages. Penny Junor, author of “The Firm: The Troubled Life of the House of Windsor,” said she thought the new season was not only “very unfair” but “very damaging.” “Too many people will think that what they’re seeing really happened,” he said. “No matter how many disclaimers.” What kind of monarch will King Charles III be? Different from his mom. A recent poll conducted in Britain by YouGov found that less than 20 percent of respondents said they thought the show was completely or mostly accurate. But 18 to 24-year-olds were three times more likely than those aged 65 and over to see it as an accurate account. And what permeates the public consciousness may not necessarily show up in the polls. The Post’s Jennifer Hassan breaks down how Netflix’s “The Crown” portrayed Queen Elizabeth II during her decade-long reign. (Video: Allie Caren/The Washington Post) Robert Lacey, royal biographer and historical adviser to the series, defended the series in an interview with the Washington Post. “What we feel, of all the decades, of all the times, is the most stable,” he said. “Not only in fact, but in personal testimony, from Charles and Diana.” Both Charles and Princess Diana contributed to books chronicling their unhappy marriage. “I stick to historical accuracy,” Lacey said, adding that “The Crown” imagines conversations that were never reported. But he said there was a difference between “detail and larger truths”. Some TV critics have questioned whether the show might increase public affection for Charles, who – although portrayed as a devoted adulterer who can be cold and cruel to his wife – is treated quite sympathetically. Can King Charles III win the hearts of the people? “At its best, ‘The Crown’ is about flawed people imperfectly dealing with damned privilege,” wrote the Guardian critic, who couldn’t find much else positive to say. Actor Dominic West, who plays Charles in the new season, told Entertainment Weekly that even depicting one of the most scandalous moments in the prince’s life — the leaking of a sordid conversation between Charles and his then-lover Camilla — “ it made me extremely sympathetic to the two of them and what they had been through.” “Looking back and having to play it, what you’re aware of is that it wasn’t the fault of these two people, two lovers, having a private conversation,” West said. “What is it really? [clear now] it’s how invasive and obnoxious the press attention was on it, that they printed it verbatim and you could call a number and listen to the actual tape.” The first episode of the fifth season of “The Crown” is a raucous one, set in 1991 in a rainy, dreary, idealess Britain in recession, which sees an impatient Prince Charles in a double suit treading oil. the pedal of his favorite sports car and conspires against a hair-helmeted rough-and-tumble Queen Elizabeth II. Bigger meaning: son vs. mom. In this season, Charles is shown manipulating, orchestrating, conspiring, with the press (egads) and politicians, to shadow his mother and convince the prime minister, major, to persuade the queen to abdicate and to pave the way for a next generation, meaning Charles. It’s all very “Game of Thrones”, with more polling data. Lacey said there was no evidence that Charles was pressuring Major to advance his position. This is “a personal view of what Prince Charles might have said”. The real-life major wasn’t having it. In a letter to the Telegraph last month, he wrote: “Netflix may well take the view that any publicity is good publicity. But I assure them it is not – especially when it disrespects the memory of those who are no longer living or puts words into the mouths of those who are still living and are unable to defend themselves.” Robert Hardman, writer of “Queen of Our Times,” watched all 10 episodes ahead of its release on Netflix and said the new season “pushed the envelope.” He said he was not so concerned about “harmless blunders” such as Princess Margaret, the Queen’s sister, appearing on a BBC radio program a decade later than she actually did. But he took issue with stories he said were unsupported, such as the queen rebuking then-Russian president Boris Yeltsin about the Romanovs. “What you’re left with is a characterization of the Queen as a rather selfish, introverted sentimentalist who somehow loses the plot,” he said. “I’m not saying, ‘How dare they be rude?’ They can criticize the monarchy. But it creates a false image of the woman she was and what she was doing at the time.” “The problem is that it becomes a clear narrative,” Hardman said, “the way people absorb the royal story.”
