Bertie goes from Clegg to Blair ...
BERTIE CARVEL, one of this country’s most acclaimed actors — his roles have ranged from Nick Clegg to Rupert Murdoch to the philandering former husband of TV’s Doctor Foster — is to portray Tony Blair in The Crown.
In its fifth season, due out in November next year, the Netflix drama will tackle two of the biggest events in recent UK history — the death of the Princess of Wales; and how Britain went to war in Iraq, following 9/11.
It is a giant role for 44-year-old Carvel, who possesses an uncanny, chameleon-esque ability to disappear into his characters.
The Crown’s creative team have a draft script written by Peter Morgan that explores Diana’s death in a car crash in Paris in August 1997, three months after Blair was elected to No 10 following a landslide victory.
Morgan has been very clear that the episode will not show the actual crash. Intriguingly, though, it will explore a different angle from the one depicted in the 2006 film The Queen, which starred Helen Mirren as the monarch and Michael Sheen as Blair.
In that film, also written by Morgan, and directed by Stephen Frears, Blair is seen to be at odds with the Palace over how to handle the death of the princess. Blair famously hailed Diana as ‘The People’s Princess’, while the Queen deemed her death a private matter and was not prepared for the national outpouring of emotion from the public.
The Crown wants to examine more of the constitutional crisis behind the scenes; and how the Queen was said to have felt bullied by her Prime Minister into making a public declaration about Diana. ‘We don’t want to go the same route as the film,’ an executive on the production confided. ‘There are aspects of the clash between the Queen and Blair that haven’t really been aired yet. It’s being so sensitively handled because of Diana’s sons — and the Queen . . . and Charles. Just making it is seen as controversial. And then we have to show it.’
THE executive pointed to the calibre of the A-list cast. Imelda Staunton as the Queen. Dominic West as Charles. Elizabeth Debicki as Diana. Jonathan Pryce as the Duke of Edinburgh. And now Carvel as Blair (his deal is close to completion).
‘These are huge actors who can convey as much with one look as a page of dialogue. They know how to do this sensitively.’
As for Carvel, I believe he can do anything. He won an Olivier for his hammer-tossing headmistress in the musical Matilda, a triumph for the Royal Shakespeare Company (and the late, much-loved executive producer Andre Ptaszynski) that is still running at the Cambridge Theatre. (Though I did notice Netflix insisted on casting ‘a real woman’ for the film version. Emma Thompson got that part, and not Ralph Fiennes, who’d been offered it earlier.)