If there is one thing that the six seasons of Peter Morgan’s The Crown proved, it’s that television audiences have an almost insatiable appetite for the scandalous intrigues of the House of Windsor. It’s fitting, then, that at a time when our newspapers are filled with tawdry revelations about the royal family, a new ITV drama, The Lady, resurfaces yet another disturbing chapter from its recent history.
Jane Andrews (Mia McKenna-Bruce) has grown up in a dead-end town in coastal Lincolnshire. These are the Thatcher years, and the centre of economic gravity is increasingly London. “You work in Marks and your boyfriend’s on benefits,” a snide friend remarks to Jane. “You’re going nowhere.” That’s when fate strikes: she gets a surprise interview for a job in the capital, as assistant dresser to Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York (Natalie Dormer). She might not have the right accent – or even the right shoes – but Fergie takes a shine to her, and the trappings of lavish palace life prove very seductive. But there is an edge to Jane. Adolescent struggles with her mental health reassert themselves, her relationship with the duchess deteriorates, and a series of love affairs end in disaster. All of this brings us inexorably closer to something The Lady tells us from the outset: things will culminate in Jane committing a brutal murder.
