The Crown is a Netflix trump card
The Crown is simply magnificent. Streamed on demand, The Crown is so good it can take your attention away from the US election result. It’s Netflix’s trump card just when television needs one.
It focuses on Queen Elizabeth’s early reign, from the time when Prince Philip abandons his Danish and Greek titles for her, to their wedding and Liz’s life as a sailor’s wife in Malta. I suspect she wasn’t called Mrs Mountbatten but neither was he Phil Windsor.
However they’re summonsed back to England when King George VI has lung surgery and is told by his physician (Marton born actor, James Laurenson) that the cancer has spread to his other lung. In a bizarre scene, his surgeons set up a makeshift operating theatre at Buckingham Palace. No footmen allowed.
As George slowly recovers, Liz and Phil carry out his duties including a lengthy state visit to Africa. However after a vigorous day shooting grouse and then drinking shots of it, George dies in is sleep. The news breaks around the world, before the young Royals find out.
It takes two episodes to get that far but the series is sumptuous and, while the lookalikes are less alike, they breathe life into a story that’s been told many times before. Weta Workshops need to cut six inches off John Lithgow so he can resemble Winston Churchill but his voice and mannerisms are good enough. Harriet Walter sparkles as Clementine Churchill.
I hope The Crown eventually reaches free to air television. It’s a treat.
Harriet Walter also sparkles as Inspector Natalie Chandler in Law And Order UK (UKTV, Fridays). She has a police nose that resembles the Pahiatua Track and, beneath it, she barks out orders to her Detective Sergeants, Sam Casey and Ronnie Brooks.
Last week they followed up the gang rape of Anna Russo, a 14-yearold girl. While it’s a ‘‘she said, he said’’ case, one of the accused finally admits he ‘‘done her too’’, encouraged by a loaded shotgun in his back.
The Crown Prosecution Service gets its conviction.
Starring as DS Brooks is Bradley Walsh, who pulls out of the eighth season of the series, takes off his mackintosh and instead does battle with Frosty Knickers (Anne Hegerty) and her quiz genii in The Chase.
In the meantime Bradley is a regular on the police procedural dramas while his colleagues change faces around him, not knowing he’s destined for TV greatness as a quizmaster.
Law And Order UK succeeds because the plots have more twists than a mountain bike race and keep you guessing. That’s a quality that American dramas rarely possess.
Now Trump has created history by becoming the 45th President of the United States and, in doing so, made Donald the most popular name in red neck America, Race For the White House (Sky 73, Mondays) becomes even more intriguing and relevant.
The series highlights the battles between former presidents on the campaign trail and this week was the turn of George H.W. Bush versus Bill Clinton in 1992. Bill succeeded, so the timing couldn’t be worse for Hillary.
Bill, as Governor of Arkansas, came across as a breath of fresh air at a time when US voters were looking for the wind to change. They forgave him most things because, according to one commentator, he had youth, progress and energy.
Even when Gennifer Flowers claimed he removed her petals and he was accused of being a draft dodger, the voters still wanted someone to make America great and Bill was the outsider, ‘‘the comeback kid’’ who succeeded.
Should we be surprised that it’s happened again? The Clintons went from outside to staunch insiders while Trump only got to look over the fence.
One image from Race For the White House that remains from Bill Clinton’s astute campaign was of him wearing dark glasses, playing his saxophone and looking the coolest dude on TV.
It should have been the harmonica.
Donald Trump played the fool very well at a time when the American people were looking for another clown. And they got one.
While the lookalikes are less alike, they breathe life into a story that’s been told many times before.