Judi Dench has written a letter calling for streaming giant Netflix to add a disclaimer to each episode of Royal Family drama, The Crown, stressing that the show is a fictionalised account of historical events. The 87-year-old actress, who received her damehood from Queen Elizabeth II in 1998, has slammed the show as "crude sensationalism".
Dench was responding to comments made by former Prime Minister, Sir John Major, in which he called the show "a barrel-load of malicious nonsense". Whilst she initially praised the series, the actress added that she was scared the show is catching up with the present day and that it was in danger of convincing viewers that the dramatisation was a “wholly true” version of history. She did, however, say that she was a “greater believer in artistic freedom”.
Dench’s letter to Netflix was published ahead of The Crown's fifth series, which launches in November. The new episodes cover some of the royal family’s most tumultuous years in the 1990s, including the bitter divorce between Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki).
Read more: Netflix releases first image of Trainspotting star as John Major in The Crown series 5
Dench's full letter to The Times is as follows:
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. 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. Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series — that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence — this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent.
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.
Netflix has responded to such complaints with a statement: "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 been scrutinised and well-documented by journalists, biographers and historians."
The Crown returns to Netflix on Wednesday, November 9
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