Dame Judi Dench has slammed The Crown for "crude sensationalism" and has called for a disclaimer to be added to each episode.
The acting veteran said while Netflix has made previous statements that the show is a "fictionalised drama", there is a very real risk that "a significant number of viewers" will believe the events depicted are historically accurate. She also noted that some of the things featured in the new series may be "damaging" to the monarchy and cannot go unchallenged.
Dame Judi's criticisms were made in a letter to the Times, after previous concerns were voiced by former Prime Minister Sir John Major ahead of The Crown's fifth season launch on November 9. Sir Major criticised the upcoming season as depicting the King - then Prince of Wales - as plotting to overthrow the queen as "malicious nonsense".
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It is expected to show Charles cutting a holiday with Princess Diana short in order to host a secret meeting with Sir Major at Highgrove in 1991. Dame Judie wrote: "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 (News, Oct 17),” Dame Judi wrote.
“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.”
She continued: "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.”
A spokesperson for the The Crown previously said: "The Crown has always been presented as a drama based on historical events.
“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.”
Meanwhile, the programme's creator, Peter Morgan, also came to the defense of the upcoming series. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, he said: "I think we must all accept that the 1990s was a difficult time for the royal family, and King Charles will almost certainly have some painful memories of that period.
“But that doesn’t mean that, with the benefit of hindsight, history will be unkind to him, or the monarchy. The show certainly isn’t.”
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