A right royal fantasy

In more ways than one, screenwriter Mike Bartlett’s royal fantasy play, made into this 2017 film, is like a Shakespearean tragedy. Not only is the dialogue spoken in Jacobean-period iambic pentameter but the plot, of a king embroiled in a constitutional crisis, could well have transferred straight from Shakespeare’s Globe. Tim PigottSmith (left, in his penultimate performance before his death) is a brooding Charles, who, after a lifetime waiting to be king, finally gets his shot at the throne after the Queen’s death. But when he stumbles over signing a press freedom bill, William and Kate (Oliver Chris and Charlotte Riley) start to wonder if it isn’t time for some young blood at the helm of the realm. Meanwhile, who’s that girl Harry’s with..? BritBox, from Thursday