Dame Judi Dench has demanded a ‘factual disclaimer’ be added to The Crown, as Netflix viewers prepare for the new series to launch.
The new series will focus on the affair between now King Charles III and newly appointed Queen Consort Camilla Parker Bowles, as well as the treatment of late Princess Diana.
Landing a long two years after season four, the highly-anticipated ten episodes are scheduled to arrive on Netflix on November 9.
Imelda Staunton will be taking over from Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II, while Jonny Lee Miller will be playing prime minister Sir John Major.
While The Crown follows members of the royal family and dramatises true events, Dame Judi has insisted the new series holds a disclaimer ‘as a mark of respect’ to Queen Elizabeth II, following her death on September 8.
This comes after Sir John slammed the plot lines as ‘a barrel-load of nonsense’.
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In a letter to The Times, Dame Judi said that Sir John Major was ‘not alone’ in his concerns about The Crown presenting ‘an inaccurate and hurtful account of history.’
She wrote: ‘The closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism.’
Dame Judi added that she worries about overseas viewers taking The Crown’s history as being ‘wholly true’.
She continued: ‘Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series — that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence — this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent.
‘No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged.’
Dame Judi added: ‘Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a “fictionalised drama” the programme makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.
‘The time has come for Netflix to reconsider — for the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve their own reputation in the eyes of their British subscribers.’
When approached for comment, a spokesperson for The Crown told Metro.co.uk: ‘The Crown has always been presented as a drama based on historical events.
‘Series 5 is a fictional dramatisation, imagining what could have happened behind closed doors during a significant decade for the royal family – one that has already been scrutinised and well-documented by journalists, biographers and historians.’
The Crown’s own service log line also reads: ‘Inspired by real events, this fictional dramatisation tells the story of Queen Elizabeth II and the political and personal events that shaped her reign.’
Other actors joining The Crown for its new series include Game of Thrones star Jonathan Pryce, who is taking over from Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip, and Lesley Manville, who replaces Helena Bonham-Carter as Princess Margaret.
Elizabeth Debicki and Dominic West also make their debuts as Diana, Princess of Wales, and Charles.
The Crown series five premieres on Netflix on November 9.
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