THE KING’S SPEECH 2010
Freya Wilson plays a young Princess Elizabeth in this story of the battle her father, King George VI (played by Colin Firth), had with a chronic stammer, which made public speaking almost impossible. He starts lessons with Australian speech therapist Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush), who helps him overcome his impediment to lead his country during World War 2.
FACT OR FICTION? The movie was largely hailed as historically accurate. The king and Lionel did work closely together and Lionel’s work helped the king grow in both confidence and stature. There were some dramatised elements, however, such as the level of disdain the king’s people showed when he battled to get out a single word. However, his daughter seemed to enjoy the film. The queen had a private screening after its release, and found it “moving,” the BBC reported.
A ROYAL NIGHT OUT 2015
Princess Elizabeth (Sarah Gadon) and her sister, Princess Margaret (Bel Powley), sneak out of the palace to join the VE Day celebrations which marked the end of World War 2, and party up a storm with commoners who have no idea who they are.
FACT OR FICTION? This actually happened, as confirmed by the queen herself, and her cousin, Margaret Rhodes, who accompanied the teenage princesses.
“I think it was one of the most memorable nights of my life,” recalled Elizabeth in an interview for the BBC in 1985 on the 40th anniversary of VE Day.
THE CROWN 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020
Claire Foy, Olivia Colman and Imelda Staunton have all played the queen at various stages of her life in the hit Netflix series, which spans the decades from her days as a princess to her turn as the world’s longest-reigning monarch.
FACT OR FICTION? Some of both. The historical events that serve as a backdrop are realistically recreated and rooted in fact, but much of the royal family’s interactions are speculation. Helena Bonham Carter, who played Princess Margaret, says the show “is dramatised. I think we have a moral responsibility to say, ‘Hang on guys, this is not a documentary. We’re making a drama. They are two different entities’.”
The Crown uses real-life events and crises as the backdrop to the trials and tribulations of the royal family, but as its
creator Peter Morgan also stresses, it isn’t a doccie.
SPENCER 2021
Stella Gonet plays HRH in an account of a Christmas at Sandringham in the wake of the disintegration of the marriage of Princess Diana (Kristen Stewart) and Prince Charles ( Jack Farthing). FACT OR FICTION? While the filmmakers have made no bones about this being fiction, Ken Wharfe, who was Diana’s bodyguard, says it’s fairly accurate.
“It was purgatory for her. Diana confined herself to spending time in the kitchen with the chef or with people like me, in the hope that time would while away and she could get back to London.”
Royal biographer Ingrid Seward says the real Diana “would have put on a good front for the queen and the family. She was a properly brought-up girl and would have considered it rude to make a scene or a spectacle of herself ”.