How we cooed when Olivia Colman was cast in the third series of The Crown. A glorious meeting of British institutions, her rendering of Elizabeth II would capture the sovereign’s stoicism while revealing the beating heart beneath. But it wasn’t to be. The problem is not, as one columnist claimed, Colman’s “distinctly leftwing face”, but rather her determination to remain expressionless at all times. The overall effect of her persistent thousand-yard stare is that of a woman trying desperately to hold in a fart.
But it would be unfair to blame this season’s deficiencies solely on Colman. The Crown still looks good enough to eat, but, like many long-running dramas about privileged people incapable of getting dressed by themselves, it has lost its allure. In the opening two series, we had pomp, circumstance, a gripping family saga and a costume department to die for. At the centre of it all was a humane portrait of a young woman thrust into a role that, in hereditary terms, should never have been hers. Now we are stuck with a hard-nosed monarch and her emotionally stunted spouse whose own children need an appointment to visit them, despite their living under the same roof.
We know from experience that the writer Peter Morgan (The Queen, Frost/Nixon) rarely deals in nuance, but now he hammers his point home with the force of a military manoeuvre. Major events, from the Aberfan disaster to the moon landing, are presented less as historical turning points than parables to help us better understand the interior lives of the monarchy.
In case the penny hasn’t dropped, while playing Shakespeare’s Richard II at Cambridge, Prince Charles delivers a soliloquy about being lonely and misunderstood. And, whether surveying the new postage stamps bearing a more mature royal silhouette, or entreating Charles to keep a lid on his whining, at least once an episode the Queen is compelled to announce that “one just has to get orn with it”. Elsewhere, exposition leaks like effluent from television news bulletins, prime ministerial meetings and the mansplaining Duke of Edinburgh (Tobias Menzies). His gossipy titbits about Harold Wilson’s allegedly shady past, overheard at his lunch club and now spilled over breakfast with the missus, provide a potted history lesson for those sleeping in the stalls.
These are, of course, troubling times for the real-life denizens of Buckingham Palace, not least in their efforts to contain Prince Andrew and his, erm, efforts to be honourable. With this high-octane storyline still playing out in real-time, offering up The Crown as anything more than a creaking museum piece is a challenge few could have seen coming. Still, Succession, the American series about a machiavellian media dynasty, has shown us you don’t have to identify with a cast of disgustingly rich, morally dubious characters to find them fascinating. But, with the exception of Erin Doherty’s no-nonsense Anne, it is increasingly hard to muster an interest in this bunch of stiffs. It’s no wonder Princess Margaret doesn’t want to get out of bed.
