"Charles III", which aired on BBC 2 from 9pm local time on 10 May, is a 90-minute miniseries imagining Prince Charles ascending to the throne. Newspapers have previously reported that the BBC's chairman, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, should be executed in the Tower of London for treason. For now, the "subpoena" he is more likely to get is next year's BAFTA awards, when the BBC will surely win the title of "Boldest Theatre Committee".
Many Tory politicians and royal biographers have criticized the work, including the funeral procession of Elizabeth II in the film, and the ghost of Diana, Princess of Wales, telling her ex-husband and eldest son a prophecy; and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, slapping Prince William for plotting to seize his father's throne. Opponents have yet to see the full script, but believe that the BBC, which launched the show, is suspected of treason.
Those who did not ask for the director-general's head to be cut off may have realized that the script was not orchestrated by the crazy Republicans in the radio bunker. King Charles III is based on a stage play by Mike Bartlett. The stage play has been performed around 400 times in London and New York, and after premiering at the Almeida Theatre in north London in 2014, it moved to London's West End and New York's Broadway performances.
Episodes like Camilla's slap and Diana's ghost standing next to a bizarre rocking trojan in white will be more shocking on television, and it will be easier for those who may be offended to discover them; instead, in theaters, the response is to give standing ovations and nominations.
However, television viewers have now seen that the play is not the style of a simulated character satire: the actors picked out some characteristics from the Windsor character archetype and imaginatively portrayed the character, not just a Breeman-style parody.
Nor can the script be mistaken for a documentary TELEVISION film. "Charles III" is a futuristic hypothesis — the storyline is set in 2022 — and if the new monarch refuses to sign a bill of Parliament that he doesn't like, causing a constitutional crisis and civil unrest, it becomes a political thriller, or a British version of House of Cards. The gap in the play was not only in time, but also in style, it was written in the form of a rhymeless poem, and Bartlett thought that Shakespeare, if he had survived, would have written literature for Charles III, just as he had shaped various Richards and Henrys.
Considered a parody of dramatic tragedy, the play has now become real. On April 7, Tim Pigott-Smith, an actor who played Charles III on stage and screen, died suddenly, and his performance became his masterpiece, and he also starred in Downton Abbey and V-Vendetta.
Tim Pigott-Smith's performance and Bartlett's screenplay avoid any signs of narrow-mindedness, grumpiness, and self-indulgence in biographer Charles, but instead show a plausible and emotional wait for Charles, who has waited for the throne for more than 70 years, and then discovers that he can't just make a symbolic face on stamps and banknotes. "Who am I?" He asked, accompanied by a harrowing sigh, and Pigott-Smith interpreted the line to a realistic hamlet-like inner struggle like To be, or not to be.
Even the constitutional crisis caused by Charles is a good choice. Bartlett did not conceive of him leading the military dictatorship or the builder of modernism, but advocated freedom of the press (which in reality does not seem to be important to the Prince of Wales).
And, in a sense, the play is optimistic and reassures monarchists. The coronation vows proclaimed here made the King of England still the monarch of territories including Scotland, Northern Ireland, Wales, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, and only a bold royalist would bet on this point with his career.
Much of the plot has been cut – the 90-minute drama is an hour shorter than the drama – and some have eased the impact of the original text on the BBC's editorial guidelines. Rupert Goold, who has directed in both media outlets, admitted in an interview that the broadcaster had expressed unease over the plot of Diana's ghost mocking the suitability of Prince Charles's rule. That paragraph has been deleted.
Electoral politicians may also be able to relax, with one of the barbecue vendors in the play mourning Britain's shrinking ("Cut the army... Cuts to the National Health Service ... The post office is closed... Decentralization. Less and less") line on television became a metaphor, meaning that the Queen had brought England together like a metal whip to split a swirling piece of roast meat.
Some parts of the show are truly shocking, and the audience's attitude depends on whether they believe that the real royal family should be protected because of the fictionality of the characters (as they actually received in the UK until the 1980s), or that being interpreted in the play is as bad as the privacy violations that the Windsor royal family often suffers.
An earlier public uproar came from a text in which the nightclub repeated gossip about Prince Harry's father. But, in the context of the story, the rumors, spoken by a man loyal to the Republican Party who later admitted to being wrong, clearly show what it is necessary to endure to inherit the throne. Richard Goulding's portrayal of the cowardly and sympathetic Prince Harry seems to be a reasonable guess about the psychology of the heir to the throne. Bartlett orchestrates a romantic anecdote between Prince Harry and a lively outsider, played by Tamara Lawrance, who takes place before the real Prince Harry establishes a relationship with Meghan Markle.
The appearance of Diana's ghost and the recognition of Shakespearean customs, both seem to be a rational representation of Charles, William, and Harry being shadowed by the late Princess, a historical and psychological one, as her sons confessed in interviews.
Whether you believe William and Catherine will stage a palace coup like Macbeth, Oliver Chris and Charlotte Riley offer persuasive advice on resolving conflicts between obligations for family members.
Charles III, which aired on television, felt differently to different audiences: for those who believed that the monarchy should always be admired, especially the BBC, the show was infuriating, but it was also a play with high-quality performances, writers and shots. Curiously, these different reviews sometimes coexist: a newspaper whose front page criticized the BBC for questioning Prince Harry's DNA gave the show a five-star rating on the same day.
Image courtesy of Robert Viglasky/BBC/Drama Republic
Translation: Ding Zhen