King Charles, John Major and pals have lined-up to slam Netflix’s The Crown – so why is Prince Harry on mute?
WHEN it comes to the fate of Harry and Meghan’s fly-on-the-wall documentary series for Netflix, predictions are varying.
Page Six, the showbiz site of the New York Post, says it will go ahead this December as planned, while news website Deadline reckons the streaming giant wants to postpone it until next year.
If it’s the latter, how will we cope with the disappointment? Admirably, one suspects.
Whether Keeping Up With The Sussexes has been booted in to the long grass or not, sources in the US say senior executives at the streaming giant have been spooked by the “fiction not fact” criticism of the imminent fifth series of The Crown and fear that adding Harry and Meghan’s “truth” in to the schedule mix might make Netflix’s royal obsession look less fan-like and more like a pointed vendetta.
Equally, they’re reportedly concerned that certain comments in Harry’s forthcoming memoir contradict what he’s said in the documentary. What a shock, said no one.
Whatever happens with the documentary that’s part of the Sussexes’ rumoured £83million deal with Netflix, Harry’s failure to criticise The Crown is illuminating.
READ MORE ON THE CROWN
After all, he spends tens of thousands of pounds suing newspapers over every slight, imagined or otherwise, in a bid to protect his wife and the memory of his mother.
Yet when his paymasters dramatise and embellish several painful episodes in Princess Diana’s life (including her death in series six, being filmed now), he has said nothing since telling James Corden that “It’s fictional . . . but it’s loosely based on the truth”.
Double standards, one might suggest. Equally, when The Crown writer Peter Morgan split from long-term girlfriend Gillian Anderson and it made headlines, Morgan employed Rottweiler lawyers Schillings to send outraged letters to newspapers to demand they stop writing about his private life.
Most read in The Sun
Yet when it comes to the personal travails of the admittedly troubled marriage between Prince Charles and Princess Diana, he shows no such reluctance to dish up someone else’s dirt in full Technicolor.
To add insult to injury, Charles — now King — is reportedly painted as uncaring, devious and supposedly plotting behind his mother’s back with then PM John Major to force her in to early abdication and take the throne himself.
Last week, Sir John took the drastic step to dismiss the claims as “a barrel-load of malicious nonsense”.
And he’s not the first to take issue with its blurring of fact and fiction.
Now that The Crown is venturing in to modern day territory and many of those featured are still alive, royal friends and sources are lining up to point out some of the artistic licence being taken, one of them Charles’s friend Jonathan Dimbleby, who described it as “nonsense on stilts”.
Just say it’s fictional
What a shame that our King’s youngest son isn’t yet lining up to defend him, too.
As a result of the criticism, a Netflix spokeswoman said on Monday: “Series five is a fictional dramatisation, imagining what could have happened behind closed doors during a significant decade for the Royal Family — one that has already been scrutinised and well documented by journalists, biographers and historians.”
So why not just say it’s a “fictional dramatisation” at the start of each episode, instead of doggedly resisting calls to do so?
After all, while there are plenty of viewers who know that liberties are being taken with the truth, there are just as many — particularly in the US where the show is hugely popular — who do take every scene as gospel.
This isn’t the ancient history of brutish Henry VIII we’re dealing with. This is King Charles III, who is very much alive and, according to royal biographer William Shawcross, not in a position to sue like other prominent families.
The Crown is beautifully made television. But it’s not wholly factual and it should make that patently clear at the start of the opening credits of each episode.
And given their loose relationship with the truth, when the doc about the Sussexes gets shown, perhaps that too should come with a “recollections may vary” disclaimer.
IF, as she claims, Prime Minister Liz Truss will always act in the national interest, then surely that includes standing down to make way for a more credible leader?
Sexy Paul is too hut to handle
PAUL NEWMAN was, and remains, one of the greatest Hollywood heart-throbs of all time.
To boot, his marriage to Joanne Woodward is still recognised as one of Hollywood’s strongest.
“Why go out for burgers when I have steak at home?” he once replied to a question about temptation. So what was their secret? Well, perhaps the chance discovery of transcripts for Newman’s unpublished memoir hold a clue.
He reveals that Woodward turned a spare room in to what she called “the F* Hut” where they could go at any time to “just be intimate, noisy and ribald”.
Isn’t that called a bedroom? Or was extra soundproofing required? The mind boggles, but mystery solved.
After all, why go out to Pizza Hut when you have F* Hut at home?
BED AND BAWDY
THE price of Ikea furniture has rocketed thanks to rising costs of materials and shipping.
A dining set has risen 80 per cent from £99 to £179, while the Fyresdal day bed frame has increased by 46 per cent from £150 to £219.
But a wry friend perhaps has a solution.
He quips: “Only the other day, I turned our regular couch in to a sofa bed just by forgetting my wife’s birthday.”
DO BOT PUT US ON HOLD
PHONE calls going unanswered and grating “on hold” music are the top complaints from customers trying to get through to companies, says a new survey.
And don’t get me started on the “Hi, how can I help you?” chatbot.
It asks you lots of questions about yourself, your account and the problem you’re facing before then concluding that it can’t help you after all and will now put you on interminable hold to speak to an actual person who will then ask you about yourself, your account and the problem you’re facing etc, before concluding that you need to speak to someone in the technical department who will ask you about yourself, your account and the problem you’re facing . . . if you get to speak to them.
But in the meantime, you’re 478th in the queue, a funereal dirge is on a loop and there’s every chance you’ll get cut off just before it’s your turn.
Sigh.
AVOID DANCE SLIP-UP
SINCE 2008, when then host Bruce Forsyth struggled to present two nights in a row, the Strictly results show has been filmed straight after the main event on Saturday but not shown until the Sunday.
It means outfit changes for Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman, a numb bum for the audience as they have to sit through two recordings, and the pain of doing a dance-off at around 11pm for two celebrities already exhausted from a day of rehearsing and performing on the main show.
But it made little difference to the viewer at home, until . . .
Step forward Strictly aficionado Dave Thorp who, oddly for someone described as a “superfan”, seems intent on spoiling the surprise by leaking the result every Saturday night.
Strictly has reportedly launched an investigation in to where he’s getting it from, but in the meantime, what to do?
Read More on The Sun
Filming and showing the results show live an hour after the main show might seem like a solution, but with music acts making an appearance and the set/prop changes needed for such a big production, it would be impossible to turn it around in time.
So there’s only one option for those who wish to stay in the dark . . . stay off the internet.