The seeds of the Prince William-Prince Harry conflict — so compellingly explored on Netflix by Prince Harry in his documentary Harry & Meghan — will be depicted on the same streaming channel, in the final series of The Crown.
A teenage Harry (Luther Ford), will be seen raging over the ‘unfairness’ of his position in the family in the show. He says William (Ed McVey), the heir to the throne, is held to different standards.
The conflict arises after Prince Harry is pictured in Nazi fancy dress at a party in 2005, aged 20, and there are revelations about him boozing and smoking dope. I’m told that he says words to the effect that he is like the scapegoat and the black sheep, yet William can do no wrong.
It’s fascinating stuff, as everyone has been wondering whether dramatist Peter Morgan will go easy on Harry, given that the Duke of Sussex still has a megabucks contract with Netflix reportedly worth £78 million over five years.
Morgan did say earlier this year that Harry’s role is small. ‘I do little bits of dramatisation of Harry, but mainly only in relationship to William,’ he told Variety.
The seeds of the Prince William-Prince Harry conflict will be depicted on the same streaming channel, in the final series of The Crown
According to a source who has seen the show, the portrayal of both young Princes, who are grieving the death of their mother, is sympathetic. But we do get to see Harry feeling sorry for himself as the ‘spare’.
In his bombshell autobiography — Spare — Harry tried to blame William and his wife Kate for his decision to wear the Nazi costume to the party. He said it was a toss-up between a pilot uniform or a Nazi uniform. ‘I phoned Willy and Kate, asked what they thought. Nazi uniform, they said.’ When he tried it on and showed them ‘they both howled’.
In the Harry & Meghan docuseries he admitted that the fancy dress was ‘probably one of the biggest mistakes of my life’, adding: ‘I felt so ashamed afterwards. All I wanted to do was make it right.’
Morgan told Variety that he has not read Spare. ‘Not that I wouldn’t be interested, but I didn’t want his voice to inhabit my thinking too much. I’ve got a lot of sympathy with him.’
Some have criticised Prince Harry for what they see as his relaxed view of the show, which depicts the death of his mother. He told a talk show in January that he had watched The Crown and ‘fact checked’ it. He said: ‘They don’t pretend to be news. It’s fictional, but it’s loosely based on the truth.
‘I’m way more comfortable with The Crown than I am seeing the stories written about my family or my wife or myself. Because it’s the difference between fiction, take it how you will; but this is being reported on as fact, because you’re supposedly news. I have a real issue with that.’
A teenage Harry (Luther Ford), will be seen raging over the ‘unfairness’ of his position in the family in the show. He says William ( Ed McVey), the heir to the throne, is held to different standards
The Paris car crash will not be shown, although Diana is seen visibly distressed by the behaviour of paparazzi in the lead-up to it. There are also scenes of her former husband Prince Charles (Dominic West), overcome by grief after seeing her body in a morgue in Paris; and having a conversation with her ‘spirit’.
Morgan said: ‘I never imagined it as Diana’s ‘ghost’ in the traditional sense. It was her continuing to live vividly in the minds of those she has left behind. Diana was unique and I suppose that’s what inspired me to find a unique way of representing her.
‘She deserved special treatment, narratively.’ Part one of the sixth season will be released on November 16, and will take the story up to Princess Diana’s funeral. Part two will stream from December 14.
Penelope pads out role as Queen mum
Penelope Wilton had to be fitted with an artfully padded bosom to play the Queen Mother in the new West End show Backstairs Billy, which opened at the Duke of York’s theatre this week.
Dame Penelope revealed, coyly, that ‘some clever pyrotechnics under the dress’ allowed her, a lissom 5 ft 7 in, to more closely resemble the Queen Mother, who was 5 ft 2 in and rather less willowy.
Clever, loose costumes by Tom Rand, with millimetre-perfect strung pearls and accessories, also help the illusion.
Penelope Wilton had to be fitted with an artfully padded bosom to play the Queen Mother in the new West End show Backstairs Billy
WeightWatchers ambassador James Corden has fallen for the smash burger hype — where burgers are pressed down and flattened.
He went to uber fashionable Supernova in London’s Soho last Monday for their patties which come in a stack, slathered in cheese and pickles. Sadly, it’s closed on Monday and Tuesday, so he went away sans lunch.
Corden has returned to the UK after eight years on The Late Late Show in the U.S. but revealed this week that he is to host a show on American radio station SiriusXM next year, chatting to megastar pals.
WeightWatchers ambassador James Corden has fallen for the smash burger hype — where burgers are pressed down and flattened
Music labels tremble as Taylor’s Versions topple the records
It’s Taylor’s world — we just live in it. Swift, 33, the billionaire pop star who grew up on a Christmas tree farm and has since broken pretty much every record in music, has changed the face of the business once again.
As any Swiftie will explain, their idol outsmarted music manager Scooter Braun, who bought her label in 2019 and with it, the masters to her first six albums… by re-recording them all. She’s on her fourth re-release — 1989 (Taylor’s Version) — and each one has proved a megaseller, enriching her and, simultaneously, making his assets less valuable at a stroke. Record labels have taken fright at this demonstration of artistic power and are trying to introduce clauses to stop their stars from doing the same.
Billboard magazine reports that Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group have all recently overhauled contracts for new signees. They now demand artists wait ten, 15 or even 30 years to re-record releases after leaving the company.
Taylor Swift, 33, the billionaire pop star who grew up on a Christmas tree farm and has since broken pretty much every record in music, has changed the face of the business once again
Meanwhile, experts agree that Swift’s Eras Tour could be the biggest of all time. Around $4 billion gross is the figure being bandied about — making Elton’s farewell tour gross of $900 million (the previous record-holder) look positively puny by comparison.
Economist Dan Fleetwood says: ‘If Taylor Swift were an economy, she’d be bigger than 50 countries.’
It’s a good thing former Made In Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo has struck a lucrative deal to get her pal Nigel Farage onto I’m A Celebrity.
Accounts for Toff’s talent agency were filed at the end of October and show net assets of £11,000 — while creditors were owed more than £400,000. Let’s hope Farage hands over 10 per cent of his fee, said to be somewhere between £500,000 and £1.5 million.
Moulin Rouge: George can-can!
Boy George must have boundless energy — he’s just signed up to appear on Broadway once panto season is over.
The singer, 62, (along with two Culture Club bandmates) paid his former lover and ex-band member Jon Moss £1.75 million this spring to settle a legal dispute.
As first revealed by this column in June, he promptly agreed to a stint as Captain Hook in a touring panto, which starts on December 9 and runs all month.
Now he’s agreed to go to New York to take on a role in Moulin Rouge from February 6 to May 12. Add in money from his uproarious memoir, Karma, and surely his piggy bank will be overflowing soon.
Boy George must have boundless energy — he’s just signed up to appear on Broadway once panto season is over
TV Chef James Martin is nothing if not a plain-spoken Yorkshireman. Cooking a chicken Kiev on stage this week he said: ‘This is going to go into our deep fat fryer. Not a bloody air fryer. There wasn’t such a thing back then and there shouldn’t be now. If you’ve got an air fryer, you’re a muppet. What do you want to fry in air for? You fry in fat. People buy these things at three o’clock in the morning on the shopping channel.’
Pure as the driven Snow
The first film made a megastar of Jennifer Lawrence. So will lightning strike again — this time for Tom Blyth, the British star of the upcoming prequel?
Blyth, 28, who was born in Birmingham and grew up in Nottingham, plays the young (and not yet evil) Corio-lanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes, which had its UK premiere last night.
He stars opposite Golden Globe winner Rachel Zegler, who has been in the headlines recently as controversy continues to rage around her forthcoming portrayal of Disney’s heroine Snow White.
Blyth, 28, who was born in Birmingham and grew up in Nottingham, plays the young (and not yet evil) Corio-lanus Snow in The Hunger Games: The Ballad Of Songbirds And Snakes
Blyth — whose naturally brown hair is blond in the movie — says Snow is someone with a ‘driving and dark ambition’. After a stint at the National Youth Theatre he headed to New York in 2016, determined to join the city’s renowned Juilliard School — and has been there since.
His father Gavin, a TV producer, oversaw Emmerdale. He died in 2010, after being diagnosed with lymphoma. The film is released next Friday.
Barbra Streisand’s I Am Barbra memoir is a must for her fans… or a slightly exhausting, score- settling victory lap for those who aren’t quite so convinced of her genius. Some of the most moving passages cover her grief for her dog Sammie (right), who accompanied her everywhere — even to the White House to meet Barack Obama.
Barbra believes Sammie appeared to her in cloud form two days after she died. She has buried the pooch in her garden, with a headstone bearing a porcelain medallion with Sammie’s image on it. To keep her memory alive further, she had her pet cloned, resulting in two further dogs — Miss Violet and Miss Scarlett.
Although genetically they are exact copies, Barbra says it’s not the same. ‘You can clone the look of a dog, but you can’t clone the soul,’ she says sadly.
Barbra believes Sammie (pictured) appeared to her in cloud form two days after she died
Simon who? Becks airbrushes Mr Fuller out of the picture…
The most fascinating footage of David Beckham in his recently released series, Beckham, was of his OCD fixation with keeping his home spick and span.
And you might wonder if his taste for cleaning up has extended further as, despite the fact the series runs for four hours, there was no time to mention Simon Fuller.
Fuller, the former manager of the Spice Girls, is the man who built the couple’s £425 million fortune — and guided both of their business careers from 2003.
He put together the MLS (Major League Soccer) deal, which saw the Beckhams move to LA in 2007, and gave David the option to set up his own club at Inter Miami, too.
I’m told he even arranged the first meeting with the Mas brothers, who co-own the club with Beckham.
Simon Fuller, the former manager of the Spice Girls, is the man who built the couple’s £425 million fortune — and guided both of their business careers from 2003
Moreover, the Beckham Brand company was set up with Fuller, Posh and Becks each having a third share — before Fuller was bought out for £50 million in 2019.
The entrepreneur still remains on the board at Victoria’s fashion and beauty company, which he helped her to found. I understand he has shares there which amount to about 25 per cent of the business. But he’s been airbrushed from the Netflix Beckham documentary.
Victoria glancingly refers at one point to ‘my manager’, who told her that she and David should try to keep their romance under wraps after their first meeting, but that is it. A source says: ‘I hear that there is no love lost between Fuller and the Beckhams, which is a shame, as they used to be pretty much family to each other.’
A Beckham source says: ‘Simon wouldn’t have expected to be in a documentary about David’s football career — it wasn’t about his business career or brand. As David has said, it was a love letter to football and family.
‘The documentary doesn’t get into the business side other than to cover a couple of his early deals like Adidas. The relationship remains good and open — Simon isn’t involved day-to-day any more, but remains a shareholder of Victoria’s business, which is obviously doing well.’
A source in the Fuller camp says: ‘Simon doesn’t have any particular feelings about the exit but would only say good things about David, if asked.
‘David had an option to buy Simon’s share in his company and he exercised it. That was just a business transaction.’
Never mind the cursed ‘Scottish play’: King Lear has proved a bit of a tragedy for Kenneth Branagh, 62.
He had high hopes when taking on what many consider to be Shakespeare’s greatest leading role. However after opening at Wyndham’s Theatre last Monday there were mostly negative reviews for his trimmed down, vigorous interpretation of the Bard’s ‘very foolish fond old man’. Then, just a few days later, I’m told poor Ken came down with Covid.
