Period drama receives royal treatment
It isn’t every day that a television program comes around that both you and your elderly, upright grandmother can enjoy together like Netflix’s newest original series, The Crown.
Created and written by Peter Morgan, the first season explores the early reign of Queen Elizabeth II, current matriarch of the United Kingdom, her young family, and her marriage to Prince Philip.
The Crown demands that a modern audience confront the important role the monarchy played during the early and mid-twentieth century. Regardless of your opinion on the royal family, you have to admit that, for all his faults, King George did get the United Kingdom, and therefore the Western world, through two world wars.
Claire Foy’s portrayal of young Queen Elizabeth II marks the centre around which every other actor navigates. Foy’s portrayal allows Queen Elizabeth’s strengths as a monarch to come across as careful and genuine instead of aloof and austere, allowing an intimacy between monarch and subject. Beneath the jewels and incomparable lush gowns are bones of steel forged from the same metal as her namesake Elizabeth I. Foy’s portrayal renders the untouchable figure of the matriarch of England into a deeply sympathetic character as she navigates her duty to her people and to her husband, the demands of the modern world, and the often-times archaic practices of the aristocracy.
As a foil to the Queen, John Lithgow excels as a savvy and slightly perverted Sir Winston Churchill, the aged Second World War prime minister who returned to office again during the final period of King George’s reign. Churchill, upon the death of King George, delivers an insanely powerful goosebump-worthy speech about Queen Elizabeth’s ascension to the throne.
While the production and writing teams of The Crown openly embrace the fact that they’ve embellished much of history, the framework of the story remains based in fact. During episode four, a dramatized account of the great London Smog—an event which remains one of the greatest industrial tragedies of the modern era—we learn that Queen Elizabeth II, so devastated by the effects of the smog on her citizens, was instrumental in creating legislature and government agencies across the world to monitor contaminants in air, water, and biota.
Time and time again, we see Queen Elizabeth’s innate sense of decorum shine through.It is this quiet dignity that truly captures the audience. She never comes across as demure or weak. There is a gravity to Foy’s portrayal that is evident at every turn. During a royal tour of colonized Nairobi, in one moment Queen Elizabeth II recognizes the presence of a fellow monarch sans introduction simply through his bearing, and in the next moment she scolds her husband for behaving condescendingly towards him when he comments on his “nice hat.” With uncharacteristic venom, she spits: “It isn’t a hat, it’s a crown.”
Ultimately, that is the overarching lesson. For all the posturing, for all the taxes collected to maintain the royal persona, the crown is not a hat and I, for one, am glad that I do not have to wear it.
Photo courtesy of Netflix.