King Charles III

[Dawnedlightly]

Anyone else watching? I'm recording it and watching about 10 mins behind...
I'm enjoying the blank verse and lookylikies

The guy playing Harry was actually pretty good but unfortunately he also played a comedic version of Harry in The Windsors, so it was a bit hard to take him seriously!

I didn't watch The Windsors so quite liked Harry

Im watching it now. I did watch a little of it last night and did enjoy the blank verse. I dont know how old Harry is meant to be in this, but surely he might be a middle aged blob by that time! Im liking it so far!
I wonder if the RF ( or the younger ones at least) watch these shows? Matt Smith was giving out prizes at the Polo the other day to Prince Harry. I would have thought he'd only get that gig through doing the Crown, so they must be aware of that show, at last!

I agree about the not signing the bill. I doubt Charles would cause a constitutional crisis over something like this. It would have been better for him to do it over something that has mattered to him over a long time, like homeopathy. My DH was singing the Horrible Histories Charles II song through this. It really fits

It was good, a bit Macbeth/Hamlet/Richard 3! Funny I also said to dh Kate had gone outside for a fag, and there she was ! ( she was known as The Smoker on the MN gossip thread)

Series 1 of The Crown might as well have been subtitled "Why Prince Philip Totally Rocks" so I can quite understand why Matt Smith would be flavour of the month. We shall see whether he's as popular in 9 months time when Series 2 comes out:

But the point about the bill Charles refused to sign being one restricting the freedom of the press is firstly that it specifically wasn't in Charles' interest to stop it, quite the opposite, so it showed his doubts about it were genuine, and secondly the fact that if he had signed it, the scandal about Jess would have been prevented.

I get the dramatic irony of it all, from a plot POV. I just don't believe for a moment that either real or fictional Charles have a deep and sincere belief in the the sanctity of press freedom. Feels forced.

I thought the bit about not signing the bill wasn’t so much about what the bill entailed, but more the realisation that as king he had no role in how the country is run other than signing documents as required. It’s as though he was no longer a person, just a bill-signing thing.

The fact that the bill restricted the press was, I felt, a bit of a deliberate red herring. It was quite clever in that respect, because it was really about the psychological aspect of finally getting to the top and then realising that actually he had no power at all.

wittgensteinscat I agree totally with your analysis. I'm watching it now, popped here to see what MN thinks. I love it and the music is fantastic

It would be interesting to see what would happen if the monarch did actually refuse Royal Assent. I wonder if the people would be up in arms or whether most people would just not care? I think what would probably happen is that another Parliament Act would be passed putting into law the formality that is Royal Assent. I could well imagine Charles wanting to disagree with some piece of legislation.

I'm watching it now. As a bit of dramatic tv, it's good. But I can't help feeling slightly uncomfortable that this is based on real life people who must be sick to death with people making "art" out of their actual lives. The Diana apparition is stupid.

I just really enjoyed the Shakespearian blank verse which was often very clever.

I don't think any of the major royals have personalities anything like those depicted - but that is entirely in keeping with the genre as none of the original Shakespearian royals were as noble (goodies) or as evil (badies) as depicted either.

I thought the charachter of Charles was handled quite sympathetically (he welcomed Jess into the Family whereas the Will character got rid of her / Charles has immovable principles. ....)

Did you see that Paul Burrell joined in on the press bandwagon? I do wish he would just naff orff as Anne would say.

peuk - I also enjoyed the Shakespearean blank verse. I was a bit bemused because I only started watching it about a third of way in (I watched the part I missed the next day on iPlayer). I think that was, again, a very clever thing to do. There was a difference between the language used within the family/institution compared with the more natural language in other scenes. The “insider” language was perfectly understandable, but not how the rest of us usually speak. I think that illustrated very well that things are done differently in that family because of the institution they live within. From reading many threads in Relationships, especially the Stately Homes threads, I’d suspect there are many people who could recognise the phenomenon of “we do things differently here”, and how the nuances of language convey something that seems like ordinary language but isn’t quite the same.

I agree that the character of Charles was handled quite sympathetically. The real-life Charles does seem to have the ability to relate to ordinary people, even if he sometimes stumbles in his attempts to connect. Now you’ve pointed it out, VanillaSugar, I think that scene of the character’s reaction to Jess probably does reflect the real man. I also think he probably does have guilt feelings about Diana.

But I think, most predominantly, the character showed that no matter how much anyone prepares for the future, you can’t grasp the effect of that responsibility until you get there. There’s the technical aspect of the responsibility, but then there’s the emotional impact on oneself when it actually happens, and there’s quite a difference between the two. Again, that’s something that probably can be well understood by many people.

I rarely watch drama, because it mostly seems to be about the pretty and the petty, but this one did get my attention because I think it was about taking the example of the highest in the land and showing that that has as much feet of clay as the rest of us. Which is probably what Shakespeare was all about back then.

It was compelling. Something different. Great acting.

Harry was miscast and it wasn't clear to me why he'd fallen in love with Jessica - she wasn't particularly charismatic, attractive, or interesting in any way.