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      Sylvia Syms, Versatile British Actress, Is Dead at 89

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      In a career that began in the 1950s, she had roles that ranged from the lead in the movie “Teenage Bad Girl” to Margaret Thatcher and the Queen Mother.Sylvia Syms, a British actress whose many roles in a career of more than 60 years included Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and the Queen Mother, died on Friday in London. She was 89.Her death, at Denville Hall, a retirement home for actors and entertainers, was announced by her family.Sylvia May Laura Syms was born in London on Jan. 6, 1934, to Edwin and Daisy (Hale) Syms. She was educated at convent schools and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and began her acting career onstage in the George Bernard Shaw play “The Apple Cart” in 1953.She became a stalwart of the British cinema soon after she played the title role in the 1956 movie “Teenage Bad Girl.” Among the many films in which she appeared in the late 1950s were the World War II adventure “Ice Cold in Alex” (1958), starring John Mills, in which she played an army nurse, and “Expresso Bongo” (1959), a satire of the music business. In that movie she portrayed the stripper girlfriend of a sleazy talent manager played by Laurence Harvey.In 1961 she was the wife of a closeted lawyer played by Dirk Bogarde — a role several other actresses had turned down — in the thriller “Victim,” the first British film to deal openly with homosexuality.Ms. Syms never achieved the level of stardom that some had predicted for her. One reason is that she rarely worked in Hollywood (although she did have a prominent role in Blake Edwards’s 1974 Cold War drama “The Tamarind Seed”). Another, according to The Daily Telegraph, is that her ability to disappear into the roles she played kept her from being, in her words, “instantly recognizable as me.” But she remained busy well into her 80s.Her notable later roles included Margaret Thatcher — in the 1991 television film “Thatcher: The Final Days” and later on both TV and stage in “Margaret Thatcher: Half the Picture” — and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother in Stephen Frears’s Academy Award-winning 2006 film “The Queen.” In that movie Helen Mirren played her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II.The next year, Ms. Syms was made an officer of the Order of the British Empire by the real Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.From 2007 to 2010, Ms. Syms had a recurring role as a dressmaker on the long-running BBC soap opera “EastEnders.” Her last role was in an episode of the historical drama series “Gentleman Jack,” a BBC-HBO co-production, in 2019.Ms. Syms’ marriage to Alan Edney ended in divorce in 1989 after 33 years. She is survived by her daughter, the actress Beatie Edney, and her son, Ben Edney.The Associated Press contributed reporting. More

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      ‘The Traitors’ Was a UK Hit. Will the US Version Catch On?

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      A cross between “Survivor” and the party game Mafia, the competitive reality show arrives on Peacock after a British version became a word-of-mouth hit.For television fans, a favorite reality show can spawn viewing parties, themed WhatsApp groups and memorable moments quoted without context.But James Symonds, 25, a British graphic designer, recently became so obsessed with the BBC reality game show “The Traitors,” that he hosted a party at which he and his friends re-enacted its first season.“Never has a TV show ever had me like this,” Symonds said in a video interview. After watching episodes broadcast live with his partner, he said they “had so much sort of adrenaline we couldn’t sleep.”“The Traitors,” which premiered in Britain in November and has an American version arriving Thursday on Peacock, NBCUniversal’s streaming service, is an adaptation of the Dutch television game show “De Verraders.” The British version was unusual in that it was not the typical type of show broadcast on the BBC, but it was one of the most talked-about shows of 2022 in Britain.A blend of “Survivor” and the party game Mafia, “The Traitors” is set in and around a castle in Scotland. Contestants work together through a series of grueling challenges to win money that is added to a final prize fund. Participants are divided into “Traitors,” whose identities remain secret and who choose a player each day to “murder,” and “Faithfuls,” who try to uncover the Traitors’ identities throughout the show.The whole group also votes for those who it thinks are Traitors, eliminating the person or people from the show. The result is a thoroughly unpredictable competition series.The British and American versions of the show were filmed at the same Scottish castle.Mark Mainz/BBCIn a scene from the British show, the contestants gathered to discuss who they thought were the Traitors.Mark Mainz/BBCFor Symonds’s party, he secretly assigned Traitors and Faithfuls, repeated monologues from the show’s host, Claudia Winkleman, and warned guests, “‘You can no longer take each other at face value,’” he said.Like in the show itself, the party became immersive. “My friend had brought his relatively new girlfriend along,” Symonds said. Soon, her boyfriend had been “murdered,” and “everyone just turns on her,” the host said, accusing her of targeting her boyfriend.This tendency for viewers to take the show’s gameplay almost as seriously as the contestants helped “The Traitors” become a word-of-mouth hit in Britain.“It’s a format that creates an enormous amount of drama,” said Stephen Lambert, whose production company, Studio Lambert, made the American and British versions of “The Traitors,” “and it is ultimately about the way in which people make judgments about each other.” In Britain, the show was broadcast during prime time, three times a week on the BBC, but it found a bigger audience during its run on the BBC’s streaming service, iPlayer (an average of 3.7 million viewers watched the first episode within the first seven days of its broadcast, with more than 1.5 million viewers watching the episode in the subsequent weeks, according to figures from the BBC).All 10 episodes of the American version of the show, which were filmed at the same Scottish location before the British show was shot, will arrive on Thursday on Peacock.Contestants on the American version of “The Traitors,” from left, Shelbe Rodriguez, Rachel Reilly, Stephenie LaGrossa Kendrick and Ryan Lochte.Euan Cherry/PeacockThe U.S. show’s format is similar, but with a couple of adjustments: The Scottish actor Alan Cumming hosts, and half of the show’s 20 contestants are reality TV stars from shows including “The Bachelor,” “Big Brother” and “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.”The oldest contestant on the British version was in her 70s, and for many fans, it was refreshing to see a diversity of ages and backgrounds in a reality show.“We’ve all sort of been exhausted by the format of ‘Love Island’ and dating competitions where people are bronzed up and dressed to the nines,” Hamza Jahanzeb, a fan who ran a Twitter Space dedicated to “The Traitors,” said in a video interview. At 29, Jahanzeb is one of the show’s many viewers ages 16 to 34, and he said he felt the cast “was a reflection of our reality.”Mike Cotton, who is the executive producer of the British and American versions of the show, said in a video interview that this was intentional: “We always knew that we wanted to have a cast — have an eclectic cast — that represented a broad age range of people, much like you would get in a traditional murder mystery.”When it came to making the American version, producers at NBC decided to include reality TV regulars “to see if preconceived notions of known personalities would affect the game,” a representative from NBC said over email. Lambert noted that in the United States, a new show faced “even more competition than there is in Britain,” and that having recognizable faces among the first season’s contestants could be “helpful, in terms of getting attention and drawing an audience.”This mix of contestants also meant that “there was an added frisson,” Cumming said. The reality TV stars “were accused of being able to be more manipulative because they’ve done things like this before — in ‘Big Brother,’ in those shows where you have to kind of form alliances,” he said.“It’s kind of hilarious that the American version of the show is much camper than the British one,” Cumming said. Euan Cherry/PeacockWhile on the British show, it was “fascinating,” Cotton said, to see “how some people will become very convinced, 100 percent certain, someone is a traitor based on almost no evidence whatsoever,” in the U.S. version, a question that emerged for all contestants, including celebrities, was, “Can you sort of get rid of your preconceived notions about someone?”In both shows, if only Faithfuls remain at the end of the competition, the overall prize fund is split evenly between them. If a Traitor makes it to the end undiscovered, however, he or she takes all of the money.At a time when viewers often accuse reality shows of being overly produced and storyboarded, the producers on both versions of “The Traitors” had a deliberately hands-off approach to try to keep the gameplay feeling authentic and immersive.“We didn’t have the kind of reality show producers pulling people in for chats, chatting with people whilst they were taking a break or anything like that,” Cotton said.This lack of intrusion also added to the pressure cooker environment. On the British show, contestants “started talking about people as if they had actually died,” Cotton said. “And we just had to remind them that they hadn’t died, but were removed from the game.” The production team said that the show had a robust contestant welfare system, and an on-site psychologist.Cumming, who is touring his cabaret show in Australia, had never hosted a reality show before. He discussed with producers playing the host as a “James Bond villain,” he said, wearing tartan and a beret.It ended up being a “heightened sort of weird, dandy, Scottish, layered version of me,” he said. “It’s kind of hilarious that the American version of the show is much camper than the British one.”“But I guess that’s me,” he added. “That’s my fault.” More

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      Kevin Spacey Pleads Not Guilty to 7 Charges of Sexual Misconduct in U.K.

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      The Oscar-winning actor had already pleaded not guilty in July to five other counts of sexual misconduct. He is currently out on bail.The Oscar-winning actor Kevin Spacey pleaded not guilty in a hearing at a London court on Friday to seven more charges of sexual misconduct, the BBC and other British news outlets reported.Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service, which authorized the criminal charges in November, had said previously that the charges related to allegations of sexual assault, indecent assault and causing a person to engage in sexual activity without consent.The charges involve one man and the offenses were alleged to have taken place between 2001 and 2004, prosecutors have said.Mr. Spacey, 63, a two-time Oscar winner, had already pleaded not guilty in July to five counts of sexual misconduct, relating to allegations involving three men involving incidents that are said to have taken place between March 2005 and April 2013.Mr. Spacey was the artistic director of the Old Vic theater in London during that time. A judge has scheduled a trial on those charges to begin on June 6, 2023.On Friday, the British judge, Mark Wall, agreed to join the seven-count indictment to the previous five-count indictment, Reuters reported. Mr. Spacey appeared via videolink only to confirm his name as Kevin Spacey Fowler and enter seven not guilty pleas during the brief hearing, the news agency said.The Southwark Crown Court, where the hearing took place, and legal representatives of Mr. Spacey did not immediately respond to requests for confirmation.The actor, who won Academy Awards for his performances in “The Usual Suspects” and “American Beauty,” is free to work and travel before the trial, having been granted unconditional bail. More

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      Terry Hall, a Face of Britain’s Ska Revival, Is Dead at 63

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      The son of Coventry factory workers, he overcame a traumatic childhood to find fame in the Thatcher years as the frontman of the Specials.Terry Hall, the frontman of the Specials, the British ska band that blended pub-fight energy with socially conscious lyrics that explored the political and racial tensions of Britain in the late 1970s and early ’80s, died on Dec. 18. He was 63.The cause was pancreatic cancer, his former bandmate Horace Panter announced on Facebook. The announcement did not say where he died.After enduring a traumatic childhood, Mr. Hall went on to enjoy a chart-topping music career.He forged his most lasting legacy as a face of the revival of ska — the pop genre that emerged in Jamaica in the 1960s, blending Caribbean styles like calypso with rhythm and blues — that shook the British music scene during the early, convulsive Margaret Thatcher years.The Specials were key figures in the movement, along with Madness, the Selecter, Bad Manners and the Beat (or the English Beat, as they were known in the United States to distinguish them from the American band of the same name).Clad in the fashions of Jamaica’s slickly attired rude boys — often with tapered suits, skinny ties and porkpie hats — the Specials sounded off about racial injustice, soaring unemployment and ultra-right-wing violence over a rave-up party sound that left sweaty audiences in a frenzy.Hollow-eyed and phlegmatic, Mr. Hall channeled outrage with a vocal style that often made it sound as if he were spitting weary invective as much as singing.The band released its debut album, produced by Elvis Costello, in 1979, two years before racial unrest rocked cities throughout Britain. With five white members and two Black ones, the Specials “were a celebration of how British culture was invigorated by Caribbean immigration,” Billy Bragg, the British singer-songwriter known for his leftist politics, wrote in a social media post after Mr. Hall’s death.“But the onstage demeanor of their lead singer was a reminder that they were in the serious business of challenging our perception of who we were in the late 1970s,” Mr. Bragg added.Mr. Hall performing with the Specials in London in 1980. He channeled outrage with a vocal style that often made it sound as if he were spitting weary invective as much as singing.David Corio/Redferns, via Getty ImagesMr. Hall believed that England needed a band to vocalize the country’s unease at the time. “What I didn’t realize,” he said in a 2020 interview with the music writer Pete Paphides, “was that it might be us.”The Specials scored seven straight Top 10 singles on the British pop charts, starting in July 1979 with “Gangsters,” which reached No. 6, and concluding in June 1981 with the No. 1 hit “Ghost Town,” a mournful rumination about a lack of opportunity for British youth in a sinking economy against a backdrop of perceived government apathy. Their other hits included “A Message to You Rudy” (No. 10) and “Too Much Too Young” (No. 1).The Specials in Los Angeles in 1980. From left: Horace Panter, Mr. Hall, John Bradbury and Neville Staple.Michael Putland/Getty ImagesEven when topping the charts, Mr. Hall and the band showed little interest in becoming part of the London entertainment machine.Proudly based in Coventry, a rough-and-tumble industrial city in the West Midlands known for its automobile factories and its sizable West Indian population, the Specials scarcely paid lip service to the frothy trends bubbling up from the banks of the Thames.“We’ve got everything we want here,” Mr. Hall said in a television interview in 1980, when he was at the peak of his fame but still living with his parents. “There’s a studio here, there’s a train station, that’s all we need.”As for London, he said: “There’s nothing for me, or for any of us; there’s no point in hanging around trendy London clubs until 4 in the morning. I’d rather stay in and watch telly.”In addition to his star turn with the Specials, Mr. Hall scored four Top 10 hits in Britain with Fun Boy Three, a deadpan and oddly experimental new wave group he formed in 1981 with the Specials’ other vocalists, Lynval Golding and Neville Staple. In 1983, the band hit No. 7 with its cover of “Our Lips Are Sealed,” a 1981 hit for the Go-Go’s that Mr. Hall wrote with that band’s Jane Wiedlin, whom he briefly dated.Terence Edward Hall was born in Coventry on March 19, 1959. His father, Terry Hall, Sr., worked at a Rolls-Royce aeronautics plant, and his mother, Joan, worked at a Chrysler factory.Growing up, Mr. Hall was a standout student and soccer player, but he spent his youth fighting inner demons. In 2019, he revealed a childhood trauma that he said sent him into a spiral of depression and substance abuse that lasted years.In an interview with the British magazine The Spectator, Mr. Hall said that “Well Fancy That!” — a 1983 song by Fun Boy Three about a harrowing sexual encounter — was about the time he was kidnapped and abused by a teacher.“It was about an episode where I was abducted, taken to France and sexually abused for four days,” he said. “And then punched in the face and left on the roadside. At 12, that’s life-changing. I still have that illness today and I will still have it in 10 years’ time, and it’s important for me to talk about that.”Prescribed Valium to deal with the emotional fallout, he soon became addicted. “Which meant I didn’t go to school, I didn’t do anything,” he recalled. “I just sat on my bed rocking for eight months.”Music was an escape. In the late 1970s, Mr. Hall joined a Coventry punk band called Squad, which brought him to the attention of Jerry Dammers, a songwriter and keyboardist who was in a band called the Automatics. That band would evolve into the Specials, with Mr. Hall taking lead vocals.“We didn’t even know who was going to play what,” he later said. “We passed around all the instruments until we found what we were comfortable with. I wasn’t comfortable with any of them, so I became the singer.”The Specials, an unstable collection of members with different backgrounds and agendas, unraveled after “Ghost Town.” The remaining members regrouped without Mr. Hall as the Special AKA and scored a Top 10 hit in 1984 with the up-tempo protest song “Nelson Mandela.”But Mr. Hall’s career was far from over. After Fun Boy Three disbanded, he helped form Colourfield, a pop band based in Manchester, in 1984. The Colourfield’s sunny love song “Thinking of You” hit No. 12 in Britain the next year.In 1990 he formed another band, Terry, Blair & Anouchka, which released one album, “Ultra Modern Nursery Rhymes.” He later formed a band called Vegas, with Dave Stewart of Eurythmics, and also collaborated with the Lightning Seeds, Gorillaz and other acts.Mr. Hall eventually drifted back to his roots with a new incarnation of the Specials, including Mr. Golding and Mr. Panter, that released an album, “Encore,” in 2019, that dealt with contemporary racial issues, including the Black Lives Matter movement. The pandemic interrupted plans for a reggae follow-up in 2020.In 2021, the band detoured from its ska roots with an album of covers called “Protest Songs: 1924-2012,” which included a honky-tonk cover of the Staple Singers’ 1965 civil rights ode “Freedom Highway” and a country-inflected version of Malvina Reynolds’s “I Don’t Mind Failing in This World.”By that year, the band was set to proceed with its delayed reggae album. But in October, The Guardian reported, Steve Blackwell, the band’s manager, disclosed that Mr. Hall had pancreatic cancer that had spread to his liver. Treatment failed to stem the disease.Mr. Hall is survived by his second wife, Lindy Heymann; their son, Orson; and two sons, Theo and Felix, from his first marriage, which ended in divorce.By the end of his life Mr. Hall had not entirely escaped his demons, but he had made a certain peace with himself, and with his role as half-willing pop star.When asked by The Spectator if he derived any pleasure from performing, he responded: “Absolutely none. That’s why I do it.”He quickly amended that. “I actually do enjoy that thing onstage where I turn round and I’ve got Horace and Lynval, who I’ve known most of my life, and we’re sharing something. That’s my night out. Don’t get out much.” More

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      Suspected Crush at London Concert Leaves 3 Critically Injured

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      The police responded to reports that a large crowd had tried to force its way into the O2 Academy Brixton, one of Britain’s most popular music venues.A large crowd tried to force its way into the O2 Academy Brixton, a popular concert venue in London, to attend a sold-out performance by Asake, a Nigerian Afrobeats singer.Kirsty O’Connor/Press Association, via Associated PressThree people remained in critical condition on Friday after suffering injuries believed to have been caused by a crush the night before during a packed London concert at one of Britain’s leading music venues, the capital’s police force said.A large crowd tried to force its way into the concert, a sold-out performance on Thursday evening by Asake, a Nigerian Afrobeats singer and songwriter, at the venue, the O2 Academy Brixton, prompting the emergency services to respond and forcing the concert to end early.Video from the scene showed crowds surging through the venue’s main entrance as cheers and screams rang out through the throng of fans stretched out into the main road, as well as the police struggling to maintain control even as they wielded batons.“This is so dangerous,” one person can be heard saying.Ade Adelekan, a commander for the Metropolitan Police, the force that serves London, said that the authorities had opened an investigation and that it would be “as thorough and as forensic as necessary.”A total of eight people were taken to the hospital, with four originally considered to be in critical condition. It was unclear on Friday whether the injuries had occurred inside or outside the venue.Speaking outside the Brixton police station on Friday afternoon, Chief Superintendent Colin Wingrove of the Metropolitan Police said that more than 4,000 people had “attended last night.”The show was advertised as sold out, and the venue has a capacity of nearly 5,000, according to its website. It was not clear whether the chief superintendent was referring to just people with tickets or also including those who tried to enter venue without them, and the police did not respond to questions about the matter.Video footage and testimonies from people who said that they were at the venue on Thursday evening showed chaotic scenes.Akin Oluwaleimu, 53, went to the concert with his 14-year-old daughter, where they encountered a “rowdy” atmosphere outside, according to the BBC, adding that he saw two women who had fainted and were carried away. “We didn’t get inside,” he said. “When we were leaving we were told the show had been stopped.”The episode led to the abandonment of the concert, the last of three sold-out shows at the venue by the 27-year-old Asake, whose much-anticipated debut album this year was well received in both Britain and the United States.“My heart is with those who were injured last night,” Asake said in a statement posted on Instagram, noting that he had not heard from the O2 Academy Brixton about what had caused the disruption. He said he was sorry that the concert had been cut short. “I pray you get well soonest,” he added.The O2 Academy Brixton did not immediately respond to requests for comment.Mayor Sadiq Khan of London said in a Twitter post that he was “heartbroken that this could happen to young Londoners enjoying a night out in our city.”“I won’t rest until we have the answers their loved ones and the local community need and deserve,” he added.During his statement outside Brixton police station on Friday, Chief Superintendent Wingrove confirmed that an incident captured on video in which a police officer was “apparently seen to push a member of the public” was under internal review. He also said that another member of the public had been arrested in connection with an assault on a police officer. The police station in Brixton, South London, lies only about 100 yards from the venue, and a cordon was in place Friday, with the normally bustling road alongside closed to traffic.Above the building’s entrance, a “sold out” sign was still visible, and garbage lay strewn across the street outside.London is home to a large African community, and the Afrobeats genre has grown increasingly popular in the capital in recent years, with artists frequently selling out packed shows. More

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      A Comedian’s Stunt Is a Sly Protest of Qatar’s LGBTQ Laws

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      Joe Lycett appeared to shred cash after demanding that David Beckham end his relationship with the World Cup. It was his latest performance with a point.LONDON — Hours before the opening ceremony of Qatar’s World Cup, the comedian Joe Lycett dropped great wads of cash into a shredder.Days earlier, he had posted a video in which he addressed the footballer David Beckham. Lycett called him a “gay icon” for appearing on the cover of a British gay lifestyle magazine. But he also gave him a week to stop being a World Cup ambassador for Qatar, which outlaws homosexuality and was reportedly paying Beckham 10 million pounds (more than $12 million) to promote the tournament.After hearing nothing from Beckham, the British comedian, wearing a pair of safety goggles and a frilly rainbow shirt, live-streamed himself feeding £10,000 of his own money into a wood chipper. He was subsequently criticized in British newspapers and on social media for shredding money at a time when many in the country are struggling financially.Except, in a follow-up video, Lycett revealed that he hadn’t really destroyed the cash, and instead had donated a total of £10,000 to two L.G.B.T.Q. charities. “To threaten to destroy money in a cost-of-living crisis? It’s a horrific thing to do,” he said, referring to Britain’s surging inflation rates.It was Lycett’s latest act of public performance as protest, an approach he had previously used to take on the British Conservative Party and Shell, the energy company. In a recent interview in a London pub, Lycett, 34, said he thought of these efforts as stunts: “War-gamed, and plotted.”Lycett, a popular stand-up comedian and TV personality in Britain who identifies as pansexual and so is attracted to people regardless of their gender identity, remembered visiting Qatar in 2015 as part of a comedy tour. “I didn’t feel safe there,” he said, adding that he was advised by the organizers not to leave his hotel. In Qatar, same-sex relations are punishable by up to seven years in prison, according to Human Rights Watch.Lycett onstage at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2015. Earlier in his comedy career, Lycett said he preferred to make “gentle and nonabrasive” jokes “about cheese and being middle-class.”Richard Dyson/AlamySoccer fans around the world have expressed concern about Qatar’s human rights record, and when he heard that the World Cup was taking place in the Arab nation, Lycett was appalled. He hoped putting pressure on Beckham “to say or do something” would have “a much larger knock-on effect” in actively improving L.G.B.T.Q. rights in Qatar, he said.Beckham declined to comment for this article, but in a TV special made by Lycett that aired Thursday in Britain, Beckham’s team made a statement that read, in part: “We understand that there are different and strongly held views about engagement in the Middle East but see it as positive that debate about the key issues has been stimulated directly by the first World Cup being held in the region.”In an email after the show’s broadcast, Lycett said he was shocked by the statement’s “absence of even mentioning L.G.B.T.Q.+ people,” and its use of the word “debate.” “Essentially Beckham (or more likely his team) are saying human rights are up for debate,” Lycett said.A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? More

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      What We Learned From ‘Harry & Meghan,’ Part Two

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      The second collection of episodes of the couple’s Netflix docuseries landed on Thursday. It dives deep into mental health and royal drama.LONDON — The second and final installment of “Harry and Meghan,” the highly anticipated Netflix docuseries, was released on Thursday, capping a week in which the couple’s personal lives were once again catapulted into the spotlight.The first three episodes of the series, released last week, dove into the makings of the couple’s relationship, their ongoing battle with the news media, the details of Meghan’s challenging family connections and more. Three more episodes were released Thursday.Love them, hate them or simply can’t live without them, people tuned in. The first set of episodes earned a staggering 81.5 million viewing hours, the most of any documentary in a premiere week, Netflix said on Tuesday. More than 28 million households had seen a part of the first collection of episodes in the first four days, the streaming platform added.Episode four picks up at Harry and Meghan’s wedding in May 2018 and quickly tackles a number of matters, including Meghan’s connection to Queen Elizabeth II, the barrage of negative headlines she faced and her mental health challenges.If you don’t have time to watch, or if you enjoy spoilers, here are the main takeaways from the latest episodes.The wedding was a family affair, although it was an international spectacle.The fourth episode kicked off by reliving the couple’s star-studded wedding in May 2018. Although thousands of people were on the street hoping to catch a glimpse of the couple, and perhaps billions more were watching on television, the couple described it as a family affair, with numerous personal touches that seemed to make all the difference.Harry chose the song (Handel’s “Eternal Source of Light Divine”) that Meghan walked down the aisle to. “It was so beautiful,” she said. It was also revealed that Charles, Harry’s father, who was the Prince of Wales at the time and is now king, helped choose the orchestra for the ceremony.More on the British Royal FamilyBoston Visit: Prince William and Princess Catherine of Wales recently made a whirlwind visit to Boston. Swaths of the city were unimpressed.Aide Resigns: A Buckingham Palace staff member quit after a British-born Black guest said the aide pressed her on where she was from.‘The Crown’: Months ago, the new season of the Netflix drama was shaping up as another public-relations headache for Prince Charles. But then he became king.Training Nannies: Where did the royals find Prince George’s nanny? At Norland College, where students learn how to shield strollers from paparazzi and fend off potential kidnappers.Because Megan’s father, Thomas Markle, did not attend the ceremony, she asked Charles to walk her down the aisle. “Harry’s dad is very charming,” Meghan said. “I said to him like, ‘I’ve lost my dad in this.’ So him as my father-in-law was really important to me.”Meghan’s connection to the queen seemed to be strong, normal even.The episode dwells on Meghan’s first official royal engagement with the queen, about a month after the wedding. She and the queen took the royal train to Cheshire, England.“I treated her as my husband’s grandma,” Meghan said, remembering her private time with the queen. “When we got into the car in between engagements, she had a blanket,” Meghan said, and that the queen placed the blanket also over her knees. “I recognize and respect and see that you’re the queen, but in this moment I’m so grateful that there’s a grandmother figure, cause that feels like family,” Meghan said.The constant and negative tabloid headlines had a dramatic effect on Meghan.The fourth episode also underscored the mental health challenges and suicidal thoughts Meghan had, in part because of negative headlines shortly after they wed and during much of her pregnancy.“All of this will stop if I’m not here and that was the scariest thing about it — it was such clear thinking,” Meghan said.Doria Ragland, Meghan’s mother, recalled an emotional conversation in which Meghan expressed suicidal thoughts. “That’s not an easy one for a mom to hear,” she said, wiping away tears. “And I can’t protect her. H can’t protect her.”Harry said he was devastated by the toll the negative press coverage took on his wife and said he didn’t deal with it well.“I had been trained to worry more about what are people going to think,” Harry said. “And looking back at it now, I hate myself for it. What she needed from me was so much more than I was able to give.”The couple’s war with the media reaches a fever pitch.The fifth episode begins with the couple’s continued war with the news media and efforts to dodge paparazzi photographers while spending Christmas 2019 away from the royal family.The headlines about Meghan appeared to be incessant, pushing the couple to a breaking point. “I realized that I wasn’t just being thrown to the wolves,” Meghan said. “I was being fed to the wolves.”The couple described creating a plan that they hoped would bring them both safety and peace of mind. “The toll was visible, the emotional toll that it was having on both of us, but especially my wife,” Harry said. “We’re going to have to change this for our own sake.”They described plans to relocate to New Zealand or South Africa before they ultimately settled on Canada. They later moved to California.Harry said his grandmother, the queen, was aware that he and Meghan were having difficulties with their public roles and made plans to discuss it in early January 2020 when he returned briefly to Britain. However, that plan was thwarted, they said.“I remember looking at H and going, my gosh, this is when a family and family business are in direct conflict because they’re blocking you from seeing the queen, but really what they’re doing is blocking a grandson from seeing his grandmother,” Meghan said.Strained family ties take center stage.In a family meeting to discuss the couple’s decision to reduce their roles as working members of the royal family, Harry said he was presented with several options but quickly realized no agreement would be reached.“It was terrifying to have my brother scream and shout at me, and my father say things that simply weren’t true and my grandmother quietly sit there and sort of take it all in,” Harry said.Harry described that meeting as hard and said that it finished without a solid action plan.“The saddest part of it was this wedge created between myself and my brother so that he’s now on the institution side,” Harry said, acknowledging Prince William’s perspective.The couple announced in January 2020 that they were stepping back from their royal duties. The decision sent shock waves around the world and drew headlines that seemed to blame Meghan for the split.“How predictable that the woman is to be blamed for the decision of a couple. In fact it was my decision,” Harry said.The queen later said she was “supportive” of the couple’s decision.This story is being updated. Check back for more. More

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      ‘The Crown’ Could Have Damaged Charles. Becoming King Has Helped.

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      The latest season of the Netflix drama depicts Charles’s contentious divorce from Diana, but in Britain, several prominent figures and the news media have rallied behind him.LONDON — Six months ago, the new season of “The Crown” was shaping up as another public-relations headache for Prince Charles. The timeline of the popular historical drama had reached the 1990s, which meant that it was going to dissect the collapse of his marriage to Diana, Princess of Wales, an unwelcome exhumation of the most painful, mortifying chapter of his adult life.Some advising the prince were pondering how to counter the narrative, according to people with knowledge of the workings of Buckingham Palace, worried that it could tarnish the reputation of a man who, in recent years, had come to be known less for his peccadilloes than for his embrace of worthy causes such as climate change.Yet now, as Season 5 of the Netflix series has unspooled, it is clear that “The Crown” has dealt Charles at worst a glancing blow. In a few cases, it has even cast him in a positive light — celebrating, for example, his philanthropy, in an episode that ended with a charmingly awkward Charles (played by Dominic West) break dancing at an event for his charity, the Prince’s Trust.What changed, of course, is that two months before the new season arrived, Prince Charles became King Charles III.His ascension transformed the star-crossed heir into a dignified sovereign and Britain’s head of state. London’s tabloid papers, which once dined out on every morsel of Charles’s messy personal life, now have little appetite for embarrassing the sitting monarch. On the contrary, most prefer to focus on how gracefully the new king has succeeded his revered mother, Queen Elizabeth II.King Charles III standing vigil with the coffin of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, in London in September. He has been praised in the British news media for his handling of the transfer of power.Pool photo by Dominic LipinskiThen, too, there is the show’s unapologetic mixing of fact and fiction, which drew sporadic complaints when it dealt with events of the more distant past, but has reached a kind of critical mass when it comes to depicting the well-worn saga of Charles and Diana’s marriage.Their story was extravagantly covered at the time and is vividly remembered by millions of people, especially in Britain. Some of those actually involved in the events have voiced their outrage at the artistic license taken by the show’s creator, Peter Morgan, calling the most recent season a “barrel-load of nonsense” and “complete and utter rubbish.” Those critics — among them two former prime ministers, John Major and Tony Blair; a famous actress, Judi Dench; and one of Charles’s biographers, Jonathan Dimbleby (who called the show “nonsense on stilts”) — inoculated the king against some of the damage he might otherwise have suffered. Rather than keeping the spotlight on the tawdry events themselves, the critics shifted the focus to how “The Crown” had embellished them.“It is definitely the case that this series of ‘The Crown’ has come in for greater backlash than any previous series, particularly for its factual inaccuracies and the treatment of the current monarch,” said Ed Owens, a historian who has written about the interplay between the monarchy and the media.The Return of ‘The Crown’The hit drama’s fifth season premiered on Netflix on Nov. 9.The Royals and TV: The royal family’s experiences with sitting for television interviews have been fraught. The latest season of “The Crown” explores that rocky relationship.Meeting the Al-Fayeds: The new season includes portrayals of the Egyptian businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed, his son Dodi and his personal valet — who had all connections with the royal family.Republicanism on the Rise: Since “The Crown” debuted in 2016, there has been a steady increase in support for abolishing Britain’s monarchy. Has the show contributed to that change?Casting Choices: In a conversation with The Times, the casting director Robert Sterne told us how the drama has turned into a clearinghouse for some of Britain’s biggest stars.For the king, the chorus of outside detractors made it easier for him to ignore the series, according to the people with ties to Buckingham Palace, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with royal protocol. That is how the royal family handled the show’s previous four seasons. The king’s communications secretary did not respond to a query about how the palace viewed the latest season.Whether the palace had a role in orchestrating the critiques is harder to establish. There are plenty of back-channel conversations — whether between palace officials and prominent outsiders or between aides to the king and royal correspondents and their editors.The season’s characters include the former prime ministers Tony Blair (Bertie Carvel), left, and John Major (Jonny Lee Miller), both of whom have criticized the show’s accuracy.Keith Bernstein/Netflix“It will doubtless have been clear to allies of the crown, including former prime ministers, that there was some discontent and anxiety about the new season of ‘The Crown’ before it first aired,” Owens said..css-1v2n82w{max-width:600px;width:calc(100% – 40px);margin-top:20px;margin-bottom:25px;height:auto;margin-left:auto;margin-right:auto;font-family:nyt-franklin;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1v2n82w{margin-left:20px;margin-right:20px;}}@media only screen and (min-width:1024px){.css-1v2n82w{width:600px;}}.css-161d8zr{width:40px;margin-bottom:18px;text-align:left;margin-left:0;color:var(–color-content-primary,#121212);border:1px solid var(–color-content-primary,#121212);}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-161d8zr{width:30px;margin-bottom:15px;}}.css-tjtq43{line-height:25px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-tjtq43{line-height:24px;}}.css-x1k33h{font-family:nyt-cheltenham;font-size:19px;font-weight:700;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve{font-size:17px;font-weight:300;line-height:25px;}.css-1hvpcve em{font-style:italic;}.css-1hvpcve strong{font-weight:bold;}.css-1hvpcve a{font-weight:500;color:var(–color-content-secondary,#363636);}.css-1c013uz{margin-top:18px;margin-bottom:22px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz{font-size:14px;margin-top:15px;margin-bottom:20px;}}.css-1c013uz a{color:var(–color-signal-editorial,#326891);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;font-weight:500;font-size:16px;}@media only screen and (max-width:480px){.css-1c013uz a{font-size:13px;}}.css-1c013uz a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}What we consider before using anonymous sources. Do the sources know the information? What’s their motivation for telling us? Have they proved reliable in the past? Can we corroborate the information? Even with these questions satisfied, The Times uses anonymous sources as a last resort. The reporter and at least one editor know the identity of the source.Learn more about our process.But public figures like Major also had an incentive to protect themselves. “The Crown” depicts him and Charles holding a private meeting in which a frustrated prince lobbies the prime minister for help in pushing the queen to abdicate because she is superannuated and poses a threat to the monarchy’s survival. Such a meeting would have raised constitutional issues, and Major says it never happened.“They’re not doing the palace’s work for it,” said Dickie Arbiter, who served as a spokesman for the queen from 1988 to 2000. “They are being besmirched and they are defending themselves.”But Arbiter said that the palace should steer clear of litigating the facts itself. “You start getting into ‘he said, she said,’” he noted. “You just give it oxygen.” British viewers, he added, would recognize the factual discrepancies without a warning.“The only difficulty is with the global audience, who will believe the royal family are like that,” Arbiter added. “It’s your lot on the other side of the Atlantic that believe every word of it.”Just in case there is any residual confusion at home, British papers, including the Daily Telegraph and the London Evening Standard, have published detailed fact-checking pieces. Some scenes, like the furtive tête-à-tête between Charles and Major, have been comprehensively debunked.In one scene in “The Crown,” a charmingly awkward Charles break dances at an event for his charity, the Prince’s Trust.NetflixOthers, like the underhanded tactics used by a BBC correspondent, Martin Bashir, to persuade Diana to give him an interview, were judged to be mostly accurate, if somewhat amped up for dramatic effect. Still others, like Charles’s attempt at break dancing, did happen, if not when the series said they did.Beyond the specific facts, some people with ties to the palace argue that “The Crown” is so obviously tilted against Charles that it is easy to dismiss. As evidence, they cite the unequal treatment of two particularly cringe-worthy 1990s scandals, named “Tampongate” and “Squidgygate” by the British news media.The series, they said, dwells on the prince’s extramarital affair with Camilla Parker-Bowles, most luridly in an episode about an overheard phone call between Charles and Camilla in which he tells her he wishes he could “live inside your trousers,” perhaps by being reincarnated as a tampon.But it ignores a similar episode involving Diana, then still married, and her close friend, James Gilbey, in which their intimate phone conversation was surreptitiously picked up and published in The Sun newspaper. In it, Gilbey called her by an instantly notorious nickname, Squidgy.To some who have worked in the palace, the season’s most glaring discrepancy involves not Charles, but the queen. Morgan, who wrote the current season, doctored her celebrated speech in November 1992, when she described that year as her “annus horribilis.” Even in a speech suffused with regret, the queen made no mention of the “errors of the past,” as Imelda Staunton does, in her portrayal of Elizabeth.Morgan, who declined a request for an interview, has never denied taking license with the facts in “The Crown.” Netflix describes the series as “fictionalized drama inspired by true events,” though it has resisted calls to put a disclaimer on each episode. Some critics have joked that if Morgan were serious about accuracy, he would not have cast a handsome actor, like West, in the role of Charles.But it’s not clear, even if the series were meticulously accurate, that the British news media would be in the mood to re-air the dirty laundry of a man who is Britain’s first new monarch since 1952. Charles has been widely praised for his performance since taking the throne, including when trouble brewed at the palace this past week.That trouble was set off by a royal aide when she repeatedly asked a Black woman born in Britain, who had been invited to a reception at Buckingham Palace, “Where are you from?” The reception guest, Ngozi Fulani, posted about the encounter on Twitter, and within hours, the royal aide, Susan Hussey, who had served as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Elizabeth, resigned with “profound apologies for the hurt caused.”As it happens, Hussey appears briefly as a character in “The Crown,” encouraging her husband, Marmaduke, then the chairman of the BBC, to ask the broadcaster to produce a laudatory program on the queen to cheer her up. (The BBC’s director general at the time, John Birt, instead greenlighted the infamous Bashir interview with Diana).Royal experts said that the palace’s swift reaction, and blunt condemnation, of Fulani’s treatment showed that Charles was intent on demonstrating that he would not tolerate any perception of racist behavior in the royal household. It averted what could have been another cycle of punishing headlines for the monarchy.According to Geordie Greig, a former editor of Tatler magazine and of The Daily Mail, “The only conversations about the king are, ‘Isn’t he doing a great job?’” More