SCREEN TAX
Trump, the Queen and other things on TV this week
AT a time when Hillary Clinton has been robbed of becoming the first female president of the US, it’s worth remembering that there is another Western woman who has quietly hung on to power for six decades. Of course, to what degree Queen Elizabeth II actually exerts influence is open to interpretation. But there she is: jolling around in her carriage, peeking out of English people’s wallets, and possibly freaking out about Prince Harry’s mixedrace girlfriend.
I have never been a particular fan of the British royal family, or any other royal family for that matter. (I’m looking at you, Mswati III, and you, Goodwill Zwelithini.) The idea of an unelected family ruling over a people forever is unjustifiable nonsense. Or so I would have said until the US election results, which were a helpful reminder that democracy is also hot garbage. Since the ascension of president-elect Trump, I am feeling much warmer towards the idea of some benevolent monarchy taking all the important decisions out of the hands of the public.
More to the point, though, I could also use some slow-burning escapism to take my mind off the world going to hell in a handbasket. That’s why I’ve been watching the new Netflix series The Crown, which tells the story of Queen Elizabeth’s reign at a glacial pace.
It’s reportedly the most costly series ever made. The price tag manifests itself in some heavy-hitting thespian talent (notably John Lithgow as a jowly Winston Churchill) and lots of expensive-looking drapes and furnishings. The action opens with the UK’s most high-profile migrant, Prince Philip, renouncing his Greek nationality in order to marry the young Elizabeth. If ever there was an immigrant who has scrounged off the British state, it’s Philip.
The series leads one to imagine that the Queen’s best times must have been as a young princess, when she and Philip larked around on boats and quaffed champagne. Perhaps this is the moment at which I can casually mention that I met the Queen a few years ago, at a reception for South Africans at Buckingham Palace. She reminisced wistfully about going horseriding with her sister on a Cape Town beach, aged 21, and said she’d “never felt so free”. I felt sorry for her.
The Crown is no Game of Thrones. It’s quite obvious from the opening scene that King George VI is on his last legs — he coughs more than Walter White in the first season of Breaking Bad — but the show takes its sweet time to kill him off and let Elizabeth have a go on the throne. It will apparently stretch to six seasons, which may or may not be shorter than the Donald Trump presidency.