‘The Crown’ Season 5: Judi Dench Calls out ‘Cruelly Unjust’ Show for 2 Major Inaccuracies
The Crown has captivated Netflix viewers with its story of Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, Imelda Staunton)’s reign. It even featured acting royalty like the aforementioned, along with Helena Bonham Carter, Lesley Manville, Jonathan Pryce and more. As The Crown Season 5 approaches, one Dame isn’t happy. Dame Judi Dench explained exactly why.
Dench wrote a letter to The Times which they published on Oct. 20. She outlined two problematic storylines in The Crown. The Crown Season 5 premieres Nov. 9 on Netflix.
Dame Judi Dench responds to Sir John Major’s criticism of ‘The Crown’ Season 5
On Oct. 17, Netflix released a statement responding to former Prime Minister John Major, which The Times published. The Crown Season 5 includes a storyline in which Prince Charles (Dominic West) meets with Major (Jonny Lee Miller). On the show, Charles suggests removing Elizabeth to make way for his reign. Netflix stood behind its dramatization of “what could have happened.” But, Major called it “damaging and malicious fiction,” and Dench agrees.
“Sir, Sir John Major is not alone in his concerns that the latest series of The Crown will present an inaccurate and hurtful account of history,” Dench wrote to The Times. “Indeed, the closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism. While many will recognise The Crown for the brilliant but fictionalised account of events that it is, I fear that a significant number of viewers, particularly overseas, may take its version of history as being wholly true.”
Judi Dench calls out 2 ‘The Crown’ Season 5 storylines
Dench has played royals herself, including Elizabeth I in Shakespeare in Love and Queen Victoria in Victoria & Abdul. She feels The Crown Season 5 storyline is cruel to the late Elizabeth II, who died Sept. 8.
“Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series — that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence — this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent,” Dench wrote.
Some simple words could fix the issue
Dench calls upon Netflix to put a disclaimer ahead of episodes of The Crown. She feels it necessary to inform viewers that it is indeed fiction. The Crown is based on historical, and some modern day, public figures. However, there is enough dramatic license that Dench feels must be clarified.
No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged. Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a “fictionalised drama” the programme makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.The time has come for Netflix to reconsider — for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve its reputation in the eyes of its British subscribers.
Judi Dench, letter to The Times, 10/20/22
