Thanks you two. It was the Headless Man scandal I was thinking of, with Marg of Arg
Except that the portrayal of Phillip’s father is fictional - apparently he didn’t blame Phillip for his sister’s death nor kick him out of the funeral.
True, but he did dump Phillip on his older sisters before sending him off to boarding school while he shacked up with his mistress in Monaco.
I binge-watched all of season 1 yesterday and about half of season 2. Geez, being Queen mostly sucks, doesn’t it?
And I’ve had a royal snootful of Princess Margaret. Hey, babe, your sis didn’t ask for this thankless job, okay? So stop taking everything personally.
I understand QEII liked this series. I can’t see why, as it paints her family as a bunch of whiners. It’s hard to believe divorce was such a big deal then–and in pretty recent memory, too. But raised Catholic in the 50s-60s, I didn’t meet a divorced person until I was in college.
But my main question: was/is Prince Philip really such a complete whiny-baby horse’s ass?
If anything he was worse.
His stupidity and shallowness was so obvious that his own family didn’t want him to be king even BEFORE the Wallis Simpson debacle. His father, George V, actually said he prayed Edward would never have children so Albert/George VI and/or Elizabeth would get the crown.
Elizabeth - “Lilibet,” as they nicknamed her - was worshipped by her family, especially her grandparents, who were crazy about her and her sister. Everyone wanted her to end up as Queen.
Yes… I feel like they absolutely NAILED the actor who plays Philip. Some of the best casting I’ve seen, really.
And Claire Foy does a fantastic job looking and sounding like QE2.
John Lithgow was amazing as Churchill. I never woulda thunk it.
But the JFK / Jackie casting… wrong look, wrong accent, wrong hairstyles. The casting department was definitely having a bad week.
And the guy who plays the Duke of Windsor.
Matthew Goode as Anthony Armstrong-Jones did an excellent job. Didn’t really look like him but still very convincing. Contrast with the actor who played Townsend. He came across as a creep, was that intentional? There have been stories recently that he and Margaret hooked up when she was much younger. His public image was always a gentleman though.
The woman who is acting the Queen Mother–always get her mixed up with Phoebe Nicholls!–I don’t really have a sense of how she is doing.
Recent NPR interview with The Crown’s showrunner.
His reasons for casting Claire Foy are spot on.
I’ve had no quibbles whatsoever with the casting. I just hope it continues with the next chapter. I figure some of them will be carried over (the Queen Mother, for example), which is nice for continuity.
I am re-watching the 1995 BBC Pride & Prejudice (the only one that exists in my universe) and I spotted her in that & thought, hey it’s the Queen Mother! She plays Mrs. Foster, the one who selects Lydia as her special companion to accompany her to Briton.
She also plays Mariah (sp?) in Mansfield Park - the wild sister that runs off from her super rich hubby and ends up stuck with the grouchy aunt for eternity.
I agree with all of this, especially Matt Smith as Philip. There have been a few scenes where he portrays a combination of humiliation and acquiescence that really brought a tear to my eye. I had really hoped he would get nominated for a Golden Globe.
Yep, it’s a hell of a long way from Dr Who.
At the BAFTAs, I absolutely couldn’t choose between Claire Foy and Sarah Lancashire (for S2 of Happy Valley). Ultimately, Lancashire won but made a point of thanking Foy - a lovely moment at 1:30 : Television Awards Winners 2017 | BAFTA
Whenever I watch any of these British shows, I always have the IMDB open on my kindle so I can check cross-pollination of actors and locales. Loads of fun.
Probably, if they ever saw the inside of the Cupboard of Patrick’s Love.
I just finished season 2. Holy crap, could Philip be any more of an asshole? Keeping Charles at Gordonstoun because it toughened up Philip? Philip lost his family and he needed a place to belong; Charles had a home and family. Charles and I are one day apart in age (I’m older by one day), and I remember when he was sent away to school. I can’t believe he doesn’t hate his father for this. No wonder Charles is so screwed up.
I think another reason Charles is so screwed up is because he got far too much advice about women and his worldview from Louis Mountbatten. I recently watched a doc about the partition of India and that was pretty eye-opening.
I am a couple of years younger than Diana, so I was pretty much in her camp when things fell apart, but I have come to realize that Charles was groomed and socialized from a very young age to think of marriage and children in a very different way than a young lady like Diana, who was a romantic at heart. I can see now it doesn’t make Charles a bad person, and shows like The Crown help me understand the world he was raised in better.
Wondering about upcoming seasons…
All the members of the Royal Family are being presented in such an unflattering light, it makes me wonder how they are going to handle Princess Diana. There are enough people alive who remember how much the public loved her and who feel the Royals made her life hell, starting with marrying her off to Charles in the first place, that trashing her may not go over well.
It probably won’t be much different in* The Crown* than it was presented in The Queen, since they’re both the creative product of Peter Morgan.
I saw The Queen, but don’t remember how Diana was treated. The series will have to devote a fair amount of time to her.
The Kennedys were treated badly in the show. Although the Kennedy marriage had its rough spots and JFK was a philanderer like his dad, the time shown in the series, namely the few months between the death of their baby Patrick (hardly routine post-partum depression, as was implied) and the assassination, was one of the closest and most loving times of their relationship.