The Crown, season 2, episode 5 review: the 'priggish' Queen comes under media attack
Contemporary resonances are never far away in The Crown and as season two reaches its midpoint parallels with the present feel especially pointed. "Are we for or against a single European market… Are we in or out?" wonders boyish magazine proprietor Lord Altrincham (John Heffernan) while his staff obliviously munch toffee.
Is this “The Crown does Brexit”? Thankfully not. Forget straight bananas or qualified majority voting. Altrincham’s obsession is the Queen – whom he condemns in the pages of his National and English Review as a “priggish school girl”.
Portrayed by RSC actor Heffernan as wide-eyed and breathless, Altrincham was indeed a thorn in the paw of the palace. His August 1957 editorial attacking the Queen’s “pain in the neck” speaking style created a scandal. In this fast-paced and riveting episode, Prime Minister Macmillan (Anton Lesser) warns of Altrincham representing a populist “fire” than needs to be extinguished without delay.
Peter Morgan, who wrote the instalment, with Philippa Lowthorpe (Three Girls, Swallows and Amazons) directing, has a gift for spinning melodrama out of the seemingly mundane. He seizes on a tin-eared speech by the Queen and presents it as the inspiration for Altrincham’s condemnation – by Morgan’s telling virtually a prelude to the storming of the Bastille.
“Many of you are living uneventful, lonely lives,” Elizabeth (Claire Foy) tells workers at the Jaguar factory in Birmingham, the insult heightened by her flat, disinterested delivery. “Perhaps you don’t understand that on your steadfastness and ability to withstand the fatigue of dull, repetitive work depends in great measure the happiness and prosperity of the community as a whole.”
The address causes a murmur – and that’s just Philip (Matt Smith) shifting in his seat. Listening in a dentist’s waiting room, Altrincham, meanwhile, realises he has a subject that will grab the imagination of his readers as the Common Market never could.
Foy's Elizabeth has never luxuriated in her birthright. She does, however, takes the deference of her subjects for granted. The Queen is thus genuinely shocked as Altrincham’s condemnatory screed is picked up by the papers. Adding to the crisis, he follows through with an impassioned television interview with ITN's Robin Day (earning a slap across the chops from a member of the reactionary League of Empire Loyalists for his troubles).
Amid the gnashing mandibles and swinging fists Morgan is careful to leave space for soapier pleasures – comedy even – as the Queen acquires the tightly-coiled hairstyle that would become her signature. Philip observes that it will at least save her from having to don a helmet if riding a motorbike. Written down, the exchange hardly sings. However, a quietly crackling chemistry has developed between Foy and Smith and their back and forth, half teasing, half in earnest, has a delicious energy.
The episode’s coda is, by contrast, bittersweet with great, gilded knobs on. With the Prime Minister’s warning that monarchies are in retreat around the world ringing in her ears, Elizabeth arranges a hush-hush meeting with Altrincham (so hush hush he thinks he’s off to bend the ear of her assistant private secretary Martin Charteris). She listens, intently if stiffly, as he lays out his recommendations for liberalising the palace. It’s obvious stuff – but only to someone living in the real world. No more debutantes balls, greater engagement with the public, a televised Christmas address.
The Crown plays a sly trick here, making us believe we’re getting the cuddly origin story of the Queen’s Christmas speech. Taking Altrincham’s words to heart, Elizabeth indeed submits to her inaugural seasonal sit-down before the cameras.
But at the end Morgan snatches away the tidy conclusion. "The stings and bites we suffer as it slips away,” complains the Queen Mother (Victoria Hamilton) as she and Elizabeth prepare to meet the first of the public to whom Buckingham Palace has thrown open its doors.
Elizabeth is relatively open-minded about flinging back the shutters. Her mother’s fear is that by pandering to populism, she may also be ushering the Windsors towards their twilight.
“Bit by bit, piece by piece… we go from ruling to reigning… to being nothing at all.” That’s the problem with reform – a little is never enough. It is an ominous end to an episode that could have settled for cheesy and cheerful – the Queen televises her Christmas speech and all is well – but instead signs off on a note of melancholic foreshadowing. Altrincham is the first to publicly question the royals' fitness to rule. He will not be the last.
