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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

Prince Charles in The Crown

119 replies

CardoMondo · 07/12/2020 22:34

Ok I know it’s fictional (supposedly) but my god why did they make Charles so dippy and gormless?! I’m on season 3 - Charles is a young man but acts like a bloody 3 year old, all the OTT excitement and hand flapping inbetween looking worried and confused all the time ... most of the characters seem pretty true to their “real like counterparts” but Charles? Surely he wasn’t like this in real life? I can’t stand him! He comes across as a total idiot! (In the drama that is)

AIBU to think the writers really did the dirty on Charles in this?

OP posts:

wellthatsunusual · 08/12/2020 13:21

I thought the Crown portrayed him much more sympathetically than 'real life' portrays him.

But as someone upthread said, the public face of the royals is fiction too, unless we're one of their circle, surely none of us really know what they're like? It's like when any of the rest of us go to work and behave more professionally than we do when we're lounging in our own house in pyjamas, or in the pub with our friends. The royals we see are the work persona. Maybe they're nice people, maybe they're not. Maybe they're warm and fun, maybe they're cold and joyless. Most likely they're like all of us and a combination of all sorts of good and bad.

Yohoheaveho · 08/12/2020 13:22

I'm not that far along yet but I'm loving Princess Anne in season 3

MissHoney85 · 08/12/2020 13:27

I disagree, even just a quick YouTube search of young Prince Charles shows him walking like that at a young age

highlandcoo · 08/12/2020 16:14

A friend's DD worked in the palace, on the clerical side. She met them all regularly at staff parties etc.

Apparently Charles was polite and friendly, Edward was nice enough but Andrew was totally objectionable, barely talked to the staff and clearly considered them all beneath him.

Dozer · 08/12/2020 16:17

Recommend the recent ‘You’re Wrong About’ podcast episodes on Charles and Di - US social history / journo types talking about it, using biographies etc.

Charles comes across pretty badly IMO!

IcedPurple · 08/12/2020 16:21

@TheRuleofStix

He’s a pampered mummy’s boy who stamps his foot and expects to get what he wants. That’s how he always comes across. His jealousy of his young wife is cringeworthy. I have no time for any of that awful family, but I think he’s one of the worst.

He's definitely not a mummy's boy! His mother was famously cold to him, even by the standards of upper-class mothers of the day. Andrew is her darling. I wouldn't say he was 'pampered' either - obviously materially he wanted for nothing and had servants to cater to his every whim, but he was packed off to boarding school from a young age, including Gordonstoun, which was pretty brutal in those days. And then he was coerced into marrying a woman he didn't love.

Not that I feel sorry for him - I think he's selfish and emotionally weak. Just not a mummy's boy! Apparently the queen mum was the mother figure in his life.

jessstan1 · 08/12/2020 16:23

I thought the portrayal was pretty realistic but unless you really know a person, you can't be sure. The actor certainly played Charles well.

Charles was a bit of a ditherer in some respects when he was younger. Nobody is perfect.

bubbletrouble1 · 08/12/2020 16:30

He opened our UK headquarters and he came across as personable and kind. He had certainly read up on our industry and asked pertinent questions some that clearly involved quite a bit of thought. I haven't got a clue how he is in his personal life. I certainly wouldn't judge the man based on a fictitious account of him in a drama. We could all be portrayed as villains of our own lives if things were out the right way. Relationships are deep and subtle.

Biancadelrioisback · 08/12/2020 16:31

I love it.
All the characters are just how I have imagined the real people to be.

MalcolmTuckersBollockingface · 08/12/2020 16:54

Regarding the stoop, I did notice in one of the scenes at Highgrove (I believe) where he had invited the Queen to lunch, he wasn’t stooping at all or not as obviously. I could be way off but I took this to mean he was more comfortable in those surroundings as he was talking passionately about his projects etc.

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 08/12/2020 16:57

I once read somewhere that you often see him with his hands clasped behind his back because it stops you stooping. From this I deduce it is something he did at one time but tried not to!

Aroundtheroom · 08/12/2020 17:13

If you watch scenes in the Crown and then the real scene, you will see that Charles has a lot more charisma than portrayed in the series. Especially the engagement interview - in the Crown he looks like he’s just received a life sentence. In reality they both seemed genuinely happy and excited and Charles is stroking Diana’s hand throughout. He also isn’t a virtual hunch back as portrayed by Josh O’Connor.

The Crown seems to have relied heavily on the Andrew Morton book on Diana, but even Andrew Morton conceded that Diana was an accomplished liar. In the deluge of information she provided, she was careful to conceal her own extra marital affairs with married men.

The Crown editors clearly decided to portray Charles first as a victim then a villain. The entirely fictional episode about Diana giving Charles a tape for their anniversary was purely designed to cast him in a bad light.

User158340 · 08/12/2020 17:16

He’s a pampered mummy’s boy who stamps his foot and expects to get what he wants. That’s how he always comes across.

So was Andrew, at least he turned out better than him.

CounsellorTroi · 08/12/2020 17:16

He's definitely not a mummy's boy! His mother was famously cold to him, even by the standards of upper-class mothers of the day. Andrew is her darling.

It was noticeable in the Crown that Andrew was allowed to kiss his mother, the other two sons were not!

Aroundtheroom · 08/12/2020 17:21

He was a pin up in his day (according to DM!)

Muckish · 08/12/2020 17:29

I think the problem with hiring excellent actors to play dreadful, historically-dysfunctional people is that a good performance invests them with appeal and interiority because the actor has had to find something human in them to be able to play them as anything other than a stereotype.

Alex Jennings was so good as the Duke of Windsor in the first two seasons, that I found myself being drawn to him, and had to remind myself that the historical Duke was a weak, reckless, dilettantish womaniser and Nazi sympathiser. Josh O'Connor is almost as good.

IcedPurple · 08/12/2020 17:32

@Aroundtheroom

He was a pin up in his day (according to DM!)

Nope.

Andrew and even Edward were semi-attractive for a brief period in their youth, but Charles was always fug.

NotMiranda · 08/12/2020 17:36

@Rae36

I nearly stopped watching when Gillian Anderson's Thatcher voice started, it was so annoying. I'm also watching X Files with teenage ds and Gillian Anderson is locked in the boot of a psychopath's car right now. Confusing.

Maybe you should start watching Sex Education as well, for the hat trick!

yeOldeTrout · 08/12/2020 17:44

after not seeing him for weeks?

I have a lot of time for Charles. He got a bum deal for a personality like his. He is very soft, but that's not his fault or a bad thing.

CoronaIsWatching · 08/12/2020 17:51

I reckon The Crown is spot on that's why The Royals are suddenly getting so defensive over it

Foxyloxy1plus1 · 08/12/2020 17:59

I’m sure Gillian Anderson has a prosthesis in her mouth. It’s very odd. I think her portrayal is over the top in general.

TeenyTinyDustinHoffman · 08/12/2020 18:02

@yeOldeTrout

after not seeing him for weeks?

I have a lot of time for Charles. He got a bum deal for a personality like his. He is very soft, but that's not his fault or a bad thing.

I'm no fan at all of the royals and have only seen a little bit of the crown when DP was watching it but I caught the bit where the queen says that she and Philip had gone away for months and Charles had been fine at home, as well as the bit where she's going through the photo albums and you have the little boys done up in top hats (prep school uniform?). I know it's a dramatisation and so how emotionally stunted he came across may have been overdone but I couldn't help thinking "You poor little sod." For all the other immense privileges, that's no way to grow up.

MrsIronfoundersson · 08/12/2020 18:05

@yeOldeTrout

after not seeing him for weeks?

I have a lot of time for Charles. He got a bum deal for a personality like his. He is very soft, but that's not his fault or a bad thing.

Poor boy ... he got a couple of kisses from parents but I would have smooshed and hugged him and not let him go if he were my 3 year old. And he was so earnest queuing up to shake hands after the queen mother!

Gobbycop · 08/12/2020 18:06

I know people that have worked in the protection circles and it's fairly universally accepted that Andrew is a complete prick.

You hardly hear of anyone speaking well of him.

Probably a nonce too, bet the queen is made up with how he turned out 😂

TheCountessofFitzdotterel · 08/12/2020 18:11

TeenyTinyDustinHoffman - don’t watch the Gordonstoun episode. It’ll kill you.

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