But Will There Be Corgis? Thread Where We Discuss Netflix's THE CROWN

Princess Margaret was awful in real life, wasn't she? Currently the only character I don't want to see guillotined.

naughty and bored and spoiled and incurious, "modern" fsvo, not a sanctimonious bore and not entirely dim, i think in the 60s and 70s she could be a refreshing party encounter for a royal when she decided to be charming or to dispense with protocol -- but if "real life" has any meaning in this context i don't think she was bothered about likeable or personable or considerate

(this series blames liz for this)

mistake crossing the streams and casting a lannister

maybe it wasn't -- as a result of being tywin he has a kind of glinting weight which maybe grants harmsworth's proposal more sinister weight than it actually ever had (the threat needs to be real for "mild peril" purposes)

I'm currently reading Craig Brown's Ma'am Darling, which basically backs what mark s surmises above about Margaret - except that she was a stickler for protocol at all times, even with close friends. Brown's portrait is more convincing and rounded than Anne Glenconner's attempt at rehabiliating Margaret in her recent Lady In Waiting memoir (although it's still a rip-roaring read; I gorged on every detail).

the "charles learning welsh" section is superbly excruciating :|

omg her hat!

https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/original/000/000/774/lime-cat.jpg

also this has made me want to restart welsh on duolingo so i'm not caught out at my investiture

i loved that episode

charles is such a woebegone figure, esp. as mummy powers on towards her third century ever tinier and more ruthlessly compact

yeah woebegone is exactly the word for it

meanwhile phil wishes he was landing on the moon

liz-hat-watch:

https://statici.behindthevoiceactors.com/behindthevoiceactors/_img/chars/mojo-jojo-teen-titans-go-7.54.jpg

everyone is thinking abt or actually having sex in this ep -- except edward heath (played by an actor i once talked to face to face at a screening, plumper now, as am i) and the duke of windsor, who is dying instead

nicely poisonous way for the nazi to go out, handing over the letters -- they really are trained in focus and the long game, these battenbergs

saxe-coburg-gothas i mean lol, battenberg is a kind of cake

not all the accents are nailed -- ted heath is less cop than wilson's even -- which possibly shouldn't matter, it's not an impressionists' convention, except it's put in the spotlight by the deft cartoon fun colman, menzies and o'connor are having with eiir's, pp's and pc's voices (colman especially is working those clipped i's)

lia williams made up like a walking mummy

scargill klaxon

*corgis shriek at heath as he enters*
HRH: "i'm sorry prime minister they mean no harm"
TH: "all animals mean harm!"

i love the thing colman does when she carries a polite smile one deathly beat too long, to mean (but never say) "what the living feck??!!" -- it's as if she can drain all joy from her face without moving a muscle

yes! i love that too, she’s great with those expressions that say volumes

heath: "we'll make no progress if you concentrate only on our differences"
scargill:"no! you're wrong, that's the ONLY way we'll make progress -- until you recognise the miners' contribution to this country is what keeps the lights on in schools, factories, hospitals -- and grand rooms like these -- there can be no agreements made with the NUM!"

scargill otm lol

(another accent not really nailed sadly)

omg what a parcel of cowardly nitwits!

during a powercut is a nice touch

privilege-watch: maybe bcz we lived in the country and it was easy to gather wood for the fire and (as a war-baby) mum tended to stockpile candles anyway lol, my family LOVED the powercuts during the miners' strike -- they were more an adventure than any kind of hardship

https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2019-11/18/20/asset/a1cf3a2933a9/sub-buzz-10961-1574110659-1.jpg
https://img.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeed-static/static/2019-11/18/20/asset/da7d6985f8c8/sub-buzz-2113-1574110673-1.jpg
https://stat✧✧✧.a✧✧.es/media/cultura/2018/03/09/dracula-krdE--620x✧✧✧@a✧✧.j✧✧

:0

https://i.imgflip.com/1sqsoa.jpg

(it's geraldine chaplin not lia williams)

(sorry i kind of effed up my wallis simpson content at every stage here: tho since she functions in THE CROWN as the ghoul who fucks it all up for everyone, this seems appropriate)

I've also just read Craig Brown's Ma'am Darling, and found it initially good fun, but it palls rather over 400+ pages. I suppose it depends on your appetite for that late C20 royal/literary/showbiz gossipy biography (Mitfords, Waughs, Tynan, all that lot); mine is not as strong as it was.

lol something i'd completely forgotten is that when christopher hitchens reviewed philip zeigler's official biography on edward viii in the LRB, the review had the title how's the vampire? (a cheeky revsion of george v's suppposed dying words -- "how's the empire?" -- as if in reference to wallis simpson). this may well have been swimming around in my subconscious last night! tho it looks as if the makers of THE CROWN got there also…

the joke's half at the expense of ruling class misogyny -- tho in this context CH can't quite help showing us glimpses of his own (the same problem often bubbled up when he wrote abt di). but other than this it's a goodish analysis, of the exact extent of eviii's fascism and what a mess it makes at least of the vulgar version of the constitutional role of the crown and its checks and balances (of the zeigler book CH says it lays out the evidence with admirable clraity but declines to draw the correct conclusions.
it's a goodish essay:
. that was actually titled ( is making a joke abt )

https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v12/n21/christopher-hitchens/how-s-the-vampire) (may need sub). this was 1990, back when hitchens could (a) still write and (b) still had reasonably principled politics --

lol the malign influence is still at work!

final sentences as intended: it's a goodish essay (may need sub). this was 1990, back when hitchens could (a) still write well and (b) still had reasonably principled politics. if anything you can feed all this into THE CROWN's version of the constitutional role blah blah to highlight how remarkable they're making eiir out to be, for successfully resisting her uncle's tendencies -- as of s3 anyway -- and for for ruining the inner life of her family and her sister's and children's possible happiness in pursuit of this

(prescient sideswipe mention of trump also)

lol just spent ten mins rewinding and replaying to see if helena BC is actually playing the piano -- if she *is* she's OK pub-pianist boogiewoogie level tho i *suspect* it's a dummy keyboard and someone else is suppyling the sounds as she sings along and silently but with good rhythm-sense bashes chord-like shapes (by my eye she's not actually doing the left hand stridework we're hearing, but my eye might be wrong)

additional discussion: https://www.fanpop.com/clubs/helena-bonham-carter/picks/results/32197/can-helena-bonham-carter-play-piano

no way to know i guess what pub-level princess margaret was

Noel Coward's verdict: "Surprisingly good, she has an impeccable ear, her piano playing is simple but has perfect rhythm and her method of singing is really very funny."

tbf she had a lot of spare time in which to practice

maybe but she doesn't seem the type to spend her spare time doing something so ungratifying in the short term! but i guess we know some of her relatives put a lot of practice work into things that are physically tricky (like show jumping) (and polo i guess!), so the right kinds of habit of self-discipline are there in the family round her

i'm less surprised when royals are good comic performers -- it's an extension of their actual jobs in a way, putting normies (and statesmen) their at ease. but "impeccable ear" is high (and interesting) praise!

Isn't it the sort of thing you'd say if you were hoping to suck up to Princess Margaret, though?

then you'd say "unsurprisingly good" !

(i assumed this was in some diary not for her eyes or similar, if it was to her face then it's obviously much less interesting and reliable, yes)

It was a diary entry, yeah

Forgive the thread spam, but I wanted to note that this show's 2019 season is nominated in the 2019 ILX TV poll:

ILX's Best Television of 2019 Poll / VOTING AND CAMPAIGNING THREAD / Voting Ends January 31

If you like this show and you'd like to see it have a good showing in the poll (running in February) all you need to do is submit a ballot including it and your other favorites (4 minimum, 25 maximum, organized by your favorite to least favorite) to forksclovetofu at gmail by end of day today. It'll take five minutes; get to it!

Rumour reached me that Shirley Temple even invited the fool to preach at Windsor Chapel. Can you imagine the banality of those exchanges? The Smugness, self-congratulation and hypocrisy. What a grotesque occasion that must have been.

Edward VIII would have made a cracking ilxer!

I'm psyched for the class masochism of watching series 4 tbh

Season 4 starts this Sunday 😃😃😃
*insert corgi barking*

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiXEpminPms

If there isn't an entire episode recreating It's A Royal Knockout in Larry Sanders onscreen/bts style, no sale.

lol

fyi USA:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=97ZMC8cV3to

warning: it cannot be unseen

Season 4 now up ie WE HAVE CORGI SIGN

it peaks in the first ep this season (Dickie gets a pressie from the RA and his head gets launched into the stratosphere). And this sub-plot of 29 year old Charles grooming a schoolgirl looks a bit of a dead-end!

I fell sleep during ep 2. Too much Charles is a big turn off. Although I lolled at Dennis Thatcher.