Netflix’s Bridgerton queen makes coronation look old and stuffy in sexy spin-off of mega-hit
Netflix’s latest royal romp has landed and — unlike The Crown — this one manages to make royals look sexy.
It’s been a huge week for Britain’s monarchy. A week where one single, marvellous event has reminded the entire world of the ancient institution’s romance, splendour and majesty. Luckily for the royals, said marvellous event – the long-awaited Netflix release of Queen Charlotte: A Bridgerton Story – coincided with the coronation of Charles III and Camilla.
Brilliant timing on the streamer’s part and you couldn’t get a more glamorous version of the royal story than this spin-off of the mega hit Bridgerton – that raciest of bodice-ripping soaps – from the reigning queen of US TV Shonda Rhimes. And now the King and Queen Camilla have some royal alternatives to The Crown – which doesn’t always paint them in a good light, and is rather kind to Lady Diana Spencer – for their post-coronation telly binge sessions at Balmoral.
To take the story of George III – the king who infamously lost the American colonies to George Washington’s revolutionaries and then proceeded to go mad – and make him and his queen so sexy and glamorous and charming is quite a feat. The Madness of George III, with the brilliant Nigel Hawthorne from Yes Minister and Helen Mirren as his queen, is a fine film but not quite as hot as this Bridgerton Story.
An enchanting lead performance by India Ria Amarteifio as Queen Charlotte and a very smooth, but sensitive Corey Mylchreest playing the “mad king” make for a gorgeous series which is in many ways superior to its Bridgerton predecessor.
The show starts with the older queen, Golda Rosheuvel, the iron lady who rules the Bridgerton world. Rosheuvel’s older consort is in real strife. Her husband’s madness is beyond help, her 11 children refuse to marry and provide legitimate heirs, and once the only hope – her granddaughter – is dead.
Even King Charles – he of the warring sons, the disgraced brother, and the most infamous divorce in history – might feel a bit of schadenfreude watching poor old Queen Charlotte.
But her troubles lead Rosheuvel to reminiscence on the early days where she, a young but wily and spirited teen, was packed off to marry a king she barely knew. That’s where Amarteifio takes over and what a revelation she is. This is a huge star in the making – all charm and toughness and sweetness as she faces a terrifying mother-in-law (Game of Thrones’s Michelle Fairley), a racist court, and a Kingly husband with a big secret. Bridgerton is well known, and somewhat controversial, for giving the roles of 18th-century lords and ladies to actors of colour and “Queen Charlotte” deals with racism in the simplest and most devastating ways.
When Fairley’s mean Dowager Princess of Wales brushes Amarteifio’s cheek, as if to see if her skin colour can be wiped off, it makes the stomach churn. This is not wokery at play, by the way, for those who may cry out “but it’s not historically accurate!” Charlotte after all, many historians agree, did have African heritage and has been called the first black queen.
Arsema Thomas, as the young up-and-coming noblewoman who will transform into Bridgerton’s wisest old dame, Adjoa Andoh’s Lady Danbury, is mesmerising as a woman desperate to break into a court that rejects her.
There’s also Sam Clemmett (Albus Potter in the original production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child) and Freddie Dennis as the two clandestinely gay assistants the King and Queen who dance when nobody else is looking. They’re very sweet but Amarteifio and Mylchreest’s George III are the real stars. They absolutely sizzle and their story of muddling through mental illness and a stifling royal world dovetails beautifully with their older counterparts.
It’s royalty at its most romantic and it’s a little schmaltzy and it’s a Netlfix romp so easy to love.
If you prefer celebrity over monarchy, there is no show that captures the emptiness and hilarity in the joy and the struggle of being/wanting to be famous like HBO’s The Other Two.
The first season about wannabe actor brother (Drew Tarver) and the do-nothing sister (Helene Yorke) whose little sibling (Case Walker) becomes a Justin Bieber-esque ‘tween pop sensation was a marvel of modern comedy.
Thank goodness for Binge, we now have the third season of The Other Two and a box set of previous episodes. And the new iteration on celebs and New York high life is just as good.
Tarver has finally made it in a hit film – with the “most Covid delays ever” – but he’s reduced to looking through neighbours’ windows to see how people are reacting.
Yorke is finally doing something with her life as an utterly ruthless talent agent, but her gorgeous dumbo of a fiance (a hilarious Josh Segarra) has become a nurse in New York, and suddenly all the attention is on him. This insipid pair of siblings make for a brilliant comedy duo and perfectly grasp a world where thirty-somethings think they are twenty-somethings.
The scene where Tarver goes on the perfect, sweetest date – only to find out his fella is in deep method acting mode for a teen romance film – is so darkly funny. American comedy doyenne Molly Shannon as their mother, has become a bigger than Oprah talk show host. And she’s lost all privacy and all control. The moment when Shannon goes for a “walk” around her massive swimming pool after being denied a stroll through Central Park is devastating stuff. Anyone looking for comedy with a real bite, need look no further than The Other Two.
Queen Charlotte is streaming on Netflix. The Other Two is streaming on, Binge.
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