King Charles III

they met AT St Andrew after she changed not just the university but her course so she could be on the same one he was on....it was all over the Scottish news back in the early noughties .It was quite obviously an attempt by her mother to secure a "good" match for her .

Not a royalist but can't be bothered with royal tittle-tattle! Does anyone really care?
DM......'nuff said!

I really enjoyed it. More than I thought I would. This play was not essentially about the Windsors at all.

It was about most of the same themes that run through so much of his other dramas and tragedies.
Making the play seem like a Shakespearean drama by using the "iambic pentameter" style of dialogue that was used in most of his plays really worked as it gave the play context.
This really showed it as the timeless story it was. It echoed a lot of the themes in so many of the other Shakespearean plays. Power grabbing, old age, a few ghosts.

PaddyAnn "common knowledge"! What the hell is "common knowledge"?
That just sounds like totally unverifiable tittle tattle to me. There is almost certainly no real evidence of any motive.

How is it obviously her mother? What is so obvious ? You are claiming Scotland news reported this ? Strange nothing was said on the news in England or Wales .

they met AT St Andrew after she changed not just the university but her course so she could be on the same one he was on....it was all over the Scottish news back in the early noughties .It was quite obviously an attempt by her mother to secure a "good" match for her
That's odd, it was reported that it was William who changed his course at university

BTW Paw and I met at St Andrews too.
MawBroon [deep curtsey] does that make you a Princess too?

Charles poured tea from a pot into a cup...no tea strainer, surely he doesn't use teabags? I would think he uses only decent fresh leaf tea ( as do I)
GillT57 perhaps Camilla likes to read the tea leaves?

Yes Deedaa I agree

Does Charles pour his own tea?

Gosh I haven't watched it ....but poor sods , listening to this lot of gossip 'she did this he did that' Does it really matter ? They seem pretty happy together who cares who chased who and why, is it any if our business
Do writers have to get permission to write fiction about living people ? It all sounds really damaging as so many people believe every thing they read or see as gospel

Charles is known to have interfered in government decisions and so the main dilemma portrayed in the play was a real one and an important one.

How people felt about the play is likely to depend to some extent on their own personal opinions regarding the role of the monarchy and the character of Charles. He could be seen as a courageous man, unwilling to go along with the usual rubber-stamping of proposals that he felt were dangerous because they were a threat to openess and the so-called freedom of the press.

I personally find that a rather unrealistic take on Charles's character, given his own efforts to keep secret his actions in trying to influence government decisions.

Alternatively, he could be seen as a deluded man who is under the impression that his role is more than a ceremonial one.

I think the play was interesting in that it posed the question as to whether, in an age where we have a parliamentary process, there is any point to maintaining a monarch whose only purpose is to rubber stamp policies.

As in any play based on real people, there was speculation as to the various characters' motives but no doubt the same was true of The Crown. I don't think a play has a duty to "show Elizabeth [or the royal family in general] in a more sympathetic way". That is what happens day in and day out on our TV screens so, to me at least, this was a play that addressed some "what if" issues that are rarely looked at.

I just enjoyed the play, which is what I thought it was supposed to be. Thought the acting was superb. Know nothing really about the royal family, except what I read, so don't feel that I can comment on the 'reality' of it. Just a good hour and half viewing for me.

The synopsis of this play is this. From Wikipedia.

"Charles and his family gather following the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Charles, as the new king, then holds his first weekly audience with the Prime Minister. They discuss a new bill for statutory regulation of the press, which has passed the House of Commons and the House of Lords and awaits only Charles' royal assent to become law."

Charles is concerned that the law restricts freedom of the press too much, and would allow governments to censor the news and prevent legitimate uncovering of abuse of power by the government.

He asks the PM for alterations to the bill, but the PM refuses. The two men spar, as the Leader of the Opposition arrives for a weekly meeting with Charles, an innovation the new king has introduced. The Leader of the Opposition expresses his own doubts on the bill, but he sees little alternative but for Charles to sign...

Charles is actually acting in defence of freedom of speech and the press. Which has to be the right thing to do. He was acting in the best interests of the nation. So he is a goody in this situation.
That is the important thing to remember in the context. Others are just working after their own interests.

Finished watching this last night. Outstanding. So wished I had seen the stage play. The writing was brilliant, the characters well formed and the storyline had integrity.

What I took from the play was that Charles was always trying to be deeply moral. The P.M. character tried to sell him the Bill by citing all his trials with the press. However, Charles felt that the censorship was wrong despite his history with the newspapers. I felt that this was reiterated by his attempts to help Harry. Charles wanted him to be happy and extended his help....it was William who called a halt to the romance. So in all it was a sympathetic portrayal (whether that's right or wrong is another matter) of Charles. He was trying to be a king and retain his deeply held moral beliefs. In all, its a work of fiction but I do not think it was unkind.

I don't think it was appropriate ie it is about our current Royal Family albeit in the future, but I did enjoy the blank verse aspect of it. It was great to see a modern play using this medium.

Nelliemoser The play is speculative and just poses some questions. Although it could be interpreted by some as characterising Charles as some sort of fighter for freedom of information, I'm not sure that in real life such a characterisation can be supported.

Charles has definitely not been a champion of openness, at least not where his own behaviour is concerned. Over as ten year period, his legal representatives fought the Guardian tooth and nail, through several Court hearings and appeals, to keep secret letters written by Charles to various members of the then government, including Blair.

The Guardian editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, said: “We fought this case because we believed – and the most senior judges in the country agreed – that the royal family should operate to the same degrees of transparency as anyone else trying to make their influence felt in public life. The attorney general, in trying to block the letters, said their contents could ‘seriously damage’ perceptions of the prince’s political neutrality. (!)

Michael Meacher, a former Labour environment secretary who received private letters from Charles about policy, called for a new system of transparency around his correspondence with ministers when he becomes king to “remove public suspicion from the process”..... “At least we would know he [Charles] has been giving his opinions and, some would say, lobbying ministers.”

What I think is really concerning is that since the original request to see Charles’s letters, the government tightened up the Freedom of Information Act to provide an “absolute exemption” on all requests relating to the Queen and the heir to the throne. That means such applications are now automatically rejected. So this appears to mean that anyone in the royal family can, in effect, seek to influjence governments on any number of issues without the voting public having any idea that this is happening.

Both DH - initially a reluctant viewer - and I thought it excellent. Started it on iPlayer at a dull moment yesterday teatime and it captivated us for the full 90 minutes. Tremendous acting, thought-proving issues and the iambic pentameter dialogue had great beauty in many places. The dilemmas of power and freedom, as someone's said above, really go beyond this particular royal family and echo Shakespearean themes. Do watch it while it's still around.

I thought it was awful in really really bad taste The fictional story was well written and the acting was good but to make such vitriolic scenes about a living family I found unbelievably poor

How would we feel if a play was made with fictional scenes of our children betraying us in the worst possible way, stabbing us in the back... the portrayal of Kate as a conniving diva was awful and no one knows if she is or isn't The part where Harry and William literally betrayed their Dad, who I believe they truely love must have hurt them so much

I m not even a Royalist I don't have that much time for them really but to write this about ANY family is awful It was a good story if it had been entirely ficticious and no one was made up to resemble the present Royals I m really amazed that people are enjoying this play that must be causing them all a lot of pain because it is harsh in its storyline

Can anyone really make a story up for public use with the characters totally resembling real people but use a completely fictional (possibly lying) story line without getting sued

Have just watched the recording of this and found it to be tedious twaddle, just about the worst acting I have seen.

Just watched it. Excellent - and like ww I wish I'd seen it in the theatre.
Shades of Macbeth, King John and even Lear.

Tim Piggot Smith was excellent as Charles, a great last performance. I thought the play was interesting but a bit far-fetched and I hated the attempts to make out that the Royal family are just like the rest of us. All living in the same house (have they ever done this?), sitting down to breakfast with the kids (no nursery then?) Harry falling for a working class girl (all that time in the army and he never met any?).It was entertaining but not exceptional.

Far-fetched plot yes. But the writing alone made up for the shortcomings.

As a piece of fictional drama, I thought this was wonderful. Superbly acted and fascinating hypothesis. All the more poignant as it was Tim Piggott-Smith's last performance.

More high class drama starting to appear on BBC which must be a good thing. There is far too much reality TV and talent less shows which bore me rigid.

I think the unrealistic portrayal of their domestic situation was just a dramatic device so that all the characters could interact with one another face-to-face. I don't think it was meant to be realistic and that is possibly why it was in "blank verse" (I didn't know what that meant until I looked it up) - to signpost that it was not meant to realistic.

However, I think the issues raised were interesting and the fact that several posters on Gransnet had different reactions to it and ascribed different motivations to the characters, in my opinion demonstrates that it was an engaging piece of theatre.

Eloethan I feel you have missed the point this is nothing to do with the current prince of Wales and his alleged influences on goverment. It was about a man who was taking a moral stand against what he saw as a great injustice.

Charles is concerned that the law restricts freedom of the press too much, and would allow governments to censor the news and prevent legitimate uncovering of abuse of power by the government.

This play was a hypothetical drama. A very real "what if." It was total fiction bringing in all the usual Shakespearean themes and dilemmas, of which William Shakespeare had such a brilliantly intuitive grasp.