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King Charles III will air on BBC2 on 10 May at 9pm.
. Photograph: Robert Viglasky/BBC/Drama Republic
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. Photograph: Robert Viglasky/BBC/Drama Republic
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'Distasteful': BBC's King Charles III
sparks anger even before it is aired
Drama depicting warring Windsors, a
scheming Kate and Princess Diana’s ghost already has one Tory politician up in
arms
Caroline Davies
Tuesday 2 May 2017 00.01 BST
Featuring the Queen’s death, the ghost of Diana, Princess of
Wales, and a full-blown constitutional crisis, a new drama from the normally
deferential BBC is not for the faint-hearted. Nor, it seems, for actors
harbouring a quiet ambition of one day appearing on the Queen’s honours lists.
King Charles III, which portrays a future royal family
descending into acrimony and bitter rivalry on Prince Charles acceding the
throne, premieres on BBC2 next week, adapted from writer Mike Bartlett’s West
End and Broadway hit of the same name.
Its Olivier award-winning director, Rupert Goold, concedes
it has presented some challenges for the state broadcaster. “Given what things
could have been like, the BBC was very good,” he tells the Radio Times.
“And you have to remember that even with the stage version,
we’d been through long conversations with lawyers and certain actors refusing
to be involved because of how it might affect their future relationship with
the honours system.”
Those who stepped up include Tim Pigott-Smith, 70, who died
last month, and who reprises the role of Charles that he played in the stage
version. Richard Goulding is Harry, whom he also plays in the Channel 4 show
The Windsors.
Oliver Chris, who stars as William, admits the scene
featuring the ghost of Diana might be seen as “pretty shocking”. “Some people
will bridle at it, but I hope it’s done with enough intelligence and
sensitivity not to be gratuitous. I’m very conscious that it’s a real person
and a real family,” he told the magazine.
The BBC has stressed the drama is pure fiction. It depicts
Charles at loggerheads with William, while the Peaky Blinders actor Charlotte
Riley is a manipulative Lady Macbeth-like Duchess of Cambridge.
One scene featuring a furious Camilla – played by Margot
Leicester – slapping her stepson William has already provoked ire. The Tory MP
Andrew Bridgen said it was “unfortunate the BBC would seek to promote this
flight of fantasy, which many licence-fee payers will find distasteful and
which I believe denigrates and undermines our royal family. I hope that the BBC
will make clear that the production is pure fiction,” he told the Mail on
Sunday.
The BBC said: “The public know the difference between fact
and fiction and King Charles III is a one-off BBC2 drama of the award-winning
fictional play.”
The play premiered at the Almeida theatre in Islington,
north London, before moving to the West End. It won the Critic’s Circle and
Olivier awards for best new play, was named best theatre production at the
South Bank Sky awards and nominated for a Tony for its Broadway production.
Pigott-Smith was nominated for an Olivier and a Tony for
best leading actor for his performance. Bartlett said the cast and crew were
still in shock over his death.
The play opens as the family gather after the funeral of the
Queen, and as Charles holds his first weekly audience with the prime minister.
His refusal to sign a statutory bill to restrict freedom of the press puts him
at odds with the government and sees him increasing the armed guard outside
Buckingham Palace as protests sweep the country.
King Charles III receives his crown from the archbishop. The
monarch is played by Tim Pigott-Smith, who died last month. Photograph: Robert
Viglasky/BBC/Drama Republic
Meanwhile, Harry is wooing a republican and wants to become
a commoner, while Kate pushes William to take on Charles.
The TV adaptation is made by the BBC and is also part of the
US broadcaster PBS’s Masterpiece anthology series, with Bartlett and Goold as
executive producers.
Rebecca Eaton, an executive producer of Masterpiece,
described King Charles III as “an ingenious play that promises to be as
riveting on television as it was on stage. It’s a play set in the near future,
but with Shakespeare never far away.”
King Charles III will air on BBC2 on 10 May at 9pm.
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