Does it matter if “The Crown” fictionalises reality?
It is more truthful than the story the royals sold
“I’M STRUGGLING TO find any redeeming features in these people at all,” says Margaret Thatcher to her husband Denis in the course of a visit to Balmoral Castle, where the Thatchers are snubbed, humiliated and forced to play an after-dinner game called Ibble Dibble in which players smear their faces with burnt cork while getting drunk. Oliver Dowden, Britain’s culture secretary, takes a similar view of the portrayal of the Royal Family in “The Crown”. He believes that the real royals have been traduced by Netflix, which makes the drama, and has demanded that the company issue a health warning before future episodes, pointing out that the programme is fiction.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline “Uneasy lies the head of production”
From the December 5th 2020 edition
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