Judi Dench has criticized Netflix’s hit show The Crown, ahead of the fifth season.
In a letter published by The Times, the actress said former British prime minister John Major is “not alone in his concerns” that the upcoming series “will present an inaccurate and hurtful account of history”.
She wrote: “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.”
The 87-year-old continued: “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.”
Judi said that the suggestions expected to be made in the new series were “cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent”.
She wrote: “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.”
The Crown’s creator Peter Morgan defended the upcoming season, which will premiere on Netflix on November 9, in an interview with Entertainment Weekly earlier this week.
He said: “I think we must all accept that the 1990s was a difficult time for the royal family, and King Charles will almost certainly have some painful memories of that period. But that doesn’t mean that, with the benefit of hindsight, history will be unkind to him, or the monarchy. The show certainly isn’t.”
“I have enormous sympathy for a man in his position — indeed, a family in their position. People are more understanding and compassionate than we expect sometimes.”
