Big change to Netflix’s The Crown after Judi Dench complained of ‘crude sensationalism’

Netflix will add a disclaimer to episodes of The Crown following Judi Dench’s blistering attack at the show she accused of being “unjustly cruel” to the late Queen.

Netflix has added a “fictional dramatisation” disclaimer to the trailer of the new series of The Crown after Dame Judi Dench and John Major launched a blistering attack on the show for “unjustly cruel...sensationalism”.

In the trailer’s description on YouTube, the first line now reads: “Inspired by real events, this fictional dramatisation tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II and the political and personal events that shaped her reign.”

The update comes after the renowned British thespian and self-appointed champion-in-chief of the Windsors published a scathing open letter criticising the Netflix series for being “crude” and “cruel”.

Dench, who is reportedly friends with Camilla, Queen Consort, complained in a letter to The Times UK that the “closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism”.

Dench called on Netflix to add a disclaimer to the start of each episode that The Crown is fictionalised drama. It followed previous demands, including from the former Secretary of Culture Oliver Dowden, for the same warning.

Dench, who made a dame by the late Queen Elizabeth II in 1988, said she was concerned that viewers would take The Crown’s account as historically accurate.

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Judi Dench has hit out at The Crown for being ‘cruel’. Picture: Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images for BFI

She continued in her letter, “Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series – that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence – this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent.

“No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged.”

Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a ‘fictionalised drama’ the program makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.

“The time has come for Netflix to reconsider – for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve their own reputation in the eyes of their British subscribers.”

Dench said she wasn’t asked by anyone in the royal family to pen the statement.

The forthcoming fifth season of the show has stirred consternation in royal, aristocratic and political circles. Many of the real-life people portrayed this season are still around and they’re out to deny the series’ portrayals of events.

Jonny Lee Miller plays former PM John Major in The Crown. Picture: Netflix

Former Prime Minister John Major, who will be played by Jonny Lee Miller in the show, this week said a purported scene between Charles and his onscreen avatar was “damaging malicious fiction” and “a barrel-load of nonsense”.

The scene was to show a conversation between Charles and Major discussing how they could contrive to have the Queen abdicate.

The fifth season, available to stream on November 9, will span the early 1990s, a decade of great tumult and scandal for the British royals.

The Crown is expected to focus on the acrimonious breakdown of Charles and Diana’s marriage, which was played out publicly at the time under intense media scrutiny.

The palace is reportedly concerned The Crown’s portrayal of Charles will be damaging to his reputation so soon after his accession. Charles’ image was greatly marred at the time of his split from Diana, who accused the now-monarch of repeated infidelity and neglect.

The season will also feature a plot line exploring Prince Philip’s relationship with Penelope Knatchbull, Countess Mountbatten of Burma. The Crown will reportedly suggest Philip had pursued “an affair” with the aristocrat.

An unnamed source had told The Telegraph the implication was an “ill-judged, unnecessarily unsympathetic and unfortunate decision” and called it a “work of republican fiction”.

In The Crown’s second season, it hinted Philip had betrayed the Queen.

Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana on The Crown. Picture: Netflix

The Crown was created by writer Peter Morgan, who also wrote the Helen Mirren-starring film The Queen.

The show is currently in production on its sixth and final season, which is expected to end with the deaths of Princess Margaret and the Queen Mother in 2002.

The cast for the sixth season includes Imelda Staunton as the Queen, Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip, Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana, Dominic West as Prince Charles, Olivia Williams as Camilla Parker-Bowles, Natascha McElhone as Penelope Knatchbull, Khalid Abdalla as Dodi Al-Fayed and Bertie Carvel as Tony Blair.

Previously, the Queen had been played by Claire Foy and Olivia Colman. The series ages up the characters every two seasons.

In a statement published by The Times, Netflix said, “The Crown has always been presented as a drama based on historical events. Series five is a fictionalised dramatisation, imaging what could have happened behind closed doors during a significant decade for the royal family – one that has been scrutinised and well-documented by journalists, biographers and historians.”

– With Wenlai Ma