Yahoo News The Crown, season 5 episode 1, Queen Victoria Syndrome, review: the drama begins to outstay its welcome
Series five of The Crown kicks off with a reminder of how it all began: with Claire Foy. A black-and-white flashback to the Queen as a young woman, launching the Royal Yacht Britannia. They were simpler times, weren’t they? I don’t mean the 1950s, but the days when The Crown could be viewed as a largely unproblematic period drama and not an attempt to milk the Royal family’s misery for all it is worth.
Foy disappears from the screen, and we’re introduced to a new Queen by way of a medical. Blood pressure 122/80, bit overweight. “Just pop your stockings off, Your Majesty.” These scenes would feel uncomfortably intrusive for any 65-year-old woman, let alone a beloved monarch who died two months ago. It’s an odd way to start.
Imelda Staunton is playing the Queen as Private Eye’s Brenda. “Right, I’m orf. One last day cutting ribbons in Morecambe, then feet up for the summer,” she tells Philip. They’re off to Scotland on Britannia, here portrayed as her favourite “home”. But Britannia is creaking, expensive to maintain and seems to have no place in the modern world. Do you see any hulking great metaphors sailing into view?
As the Queen and Philip (Jonathan Pryce, bringing a suitable level of gravitas) head north on Britannia, Charles and Diana are holidaying on a flashy superyacht. He wants to visit ancient ruins, she wants to go shopping. They’re thoroughly miserable together, and their boys can see it.
The themes are clearly set out in this opening episode. The Waleses are openly at war, while Charles is privately scheming against the Queen because he is itching to replace her and modernise the monarchy. Charles engineers a meeting with the new Prime Minister, John Major, to elicit his support for the Queen’s abdication.
The only problem: Major has insisted this conversation never took place. We’re back to the old argument about what is fact and what is fiction, and for Netflix to say this is clear to audiences is disingenuous at best.
And, given everything we know about the Queen, what are the chances that she really threw a petulant strop when Major refused to accede to her demand for a “teeny, tiny little refreshment and refurbishment” of Britannia? She comes across as petty and bullying, which is at odds with any description of her that has ever been published. It is an early warning sign that this series will push things too far. The Crown has always operated within the bounds of possibility: the conversations may be imagined, but we should feel as if they could have happened. That feeling is being lost.
Writer Peter Morgan has spun off this story from one concrete fact: a newspaper poll in that year (1991) really did find half of the public in agreement that the Queen should abdicate in her son’s favour. There is some light comedy as flunkeys dash to prevent that day’s paper from landing on the monarch’s breakfast table. This is where The Crown can open a window onto history, reminding us that the monarch was not always so beloved by her subjects.
And what of the performances? Dominic West has mastered the mannerisms of Charles, but not made much effort with the voice. Elizabeth Debicki has aced both as Diana, but so far she lacks the star power of the real thing and on early evidence is more of an impressionist than an actress.
Hilariously, Jonny Lee Miller plays John Major. All those memories of him as the fiendishly attractive Sick Boy in Trainspotting are wiped out in an instant. It will take some time to get used to this.
