It cinema has always had a fascination for the stories of kings, queens, princesses and nobility in general, just think of the success of films like The Queen with the award Oscar Helen Mirren o Elizabeth con Cate Blanchett. For a few years, however, this phenomenon, this adoration for “real” life has totally kidnapped the world of television series and does not seem to want to run out.
Symptoms of this passion for the ways and dynamics of court life were first felt with The Tudors – Court scandals, 2007 series with Jonathan Rhys Meyers in the role of Enrico VIII and then with the success of Downton Abbey, a series that aired between 2010 and 2015, still iconic, set in the noble world of England’s George V between 1912 and 1926. Conceived and written by the actor Julian Fellowes, the award-winning series has opened the doors of the English aristocracy and its iconic characters, such as the one played by Dame Maggie Smith, the evergreen and caustic Lady Violet, set the stage for the series that came later.
Even before that Downton Abbey chiudesse the doors, to ride the wave of royal charm, he thought about it, in fact, with a discreet following, Reign, focused on Maria Stuart (Adelaide Kane), which began in 2013 and lasted for 4 seasons until 2016. But to seal the now indissoluble relationship between the public and the royals (especially the English ones, of whatever century they are) in 2015 comes the Crown, written and created by Peter Morgan, the same screenwriter behind the Oscar-winning film The Queen, a series that as we all know tells the life and reign of Elizabeth II and is still in production with an ever-growing following of fans, especially thanks to the last season, the fourth , which has introduced people who have always been loved by public opinion such as Lady Diana.
Building on the success of The Crown, attempts have been made in recent years, even relatively successful ones, to replicate the success of The Crown or at least acquire the same passionate audience. Among them to mention are Victoria, a series that lasted for 3 seasons, from 2016 to 2019 with Jenna Coleman as the famous queen from the long-lived reign (nowhere compared to Elizabeth II) and the miniseries The Great, arrived on StarzPlay in Italy at the end of the pandemic in June 2020 and already renewed for a second season. With Elle Fanning in the role of an ironic and combative Catherine II of Russia, said Catherine the great, empress of Russia from 1762 until her death, the miniseries that sees the youngest of the Fanning sisters starring alongside Nicholas Hoult, here in the role of Emperor Peter, is written by Tony McNamara, right hand at the writing of Yorgos Lanthimos in The favourite.
Given the premises, it is not surprising to learn that the series is only partially faithful to the historical reality in full grotesque comic style of the Lanthimos school and is therefore rich in situations between the sacred and the profane. Despite the high popularity, perhaps due to its programming on a platform with fewer users and resonance than Netflix and Amazon, the series is having “great” results but not at the level of The Crown.
Finally, last December, the series conceived by Chris Van Dusen and produced by a queen of television series such as Shonda Rhimes: Bridgerton. Combining the irony and the dynamics of Gossip Girl with the rules, the intrigues and the language of England in the Regency era conjugated in a multi-ethnic utopian version, Bridgerton has become in a very short time one of the most loved and viewed series of all times.
Netflix has in fact communicated that, after only 28 days from its debut on Christmas day 2020, the series has recorded 82 million views and is still the most viewed on the platform. The real series and all their declinations are therefore a phenomenon destined not to run out easily but, considering Bridgerton’s lesson, to renew itself cyclically in new forms and manifestations.