Alan Titchmarsh gets frosty with advisor from The Crown
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During Sunday’s Jubilee special of Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh, the ITV host spoke with The Crown’s historical advisor about the accuracy of the series. Elsewhere, Alan also chatted with Julian Clary about his children’s book and Stephen Mangan about life after The Split.
However, at the beginning of Alan’s chat with Robert, things got a tad heated between the pair when the gardener quizzed the historical advisor on the portrayal of the Royal Family.
“You weren’t there, nobody was there apart from the person involved with the Queen,” Alan began after playing a clip of Oliva Colman’s portrayal of the Monarch.
“Can you defend license as it were?” Alan asked as Robert replied: “Absolutely. The Queen never said those words.”
“But, you’re implying that she did in a way by putting it out because it becomes received wisdom, doesn’t it,” the host hit back.
Defending the series, Robert said: “Well, it is a drama, but there we have just seen the essence of the Queen’s story.
“I mean, she was not born to be Queen. I think that’s one of the reasons for her success.”
“That’s a rather neat way of dodging my question,” Alan replied as he shut down his guest’s response.
“No, no, no!” Robert insisted. “I mean, I am not the writer of The Crown, I am the historical consultant therefore I suppose you’re entitled to have a bash at me.
“The accuracy is in the truth. No, she didn’t say that because this is a drama, but it conveys exactly the truth about the Queen and that she wasn’t born to be Queen.
“She was in fact, the Princess Beatrice of her time, she was the daughter of the Duke of York.”
The former Ground Force star went on to ask: “As a historian, accuracy is your stuff of life.
“Do you feel slightly uneasy sometimes when it’s perhaps adjusted or made to fit a drama?”
“No, I don’t know,” Robert simply replied as he proceeded to give an example of a scene in The Crown which was not true.
“For example, the episode in The Crown about the death of Lord Mountbatten.
“We made up the fact that the last thing that Lord Mountbatten did was to write a letter to Prince Charles saying he should get his act together.
“Now, he didn’t actually write a letter, but we know that at that time, he was very much involved in telling Prince Charles the time has come to settle down.
“And we know that the death of Lord Mountbatten greatly added to that message when it came to Prince Charles.
“So we would argue that’s the truth we got across and we don’t know what was actually said, but we think the truth that we got across there.”
Turning their attention to the Queen’s Jubilee, Alan pointed out that the likeliness of a Platinum event happening anytime soon isn’t very likely.
Robert went on to recall the previous Monarch’s Jubilees over the years.
Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh returns on Sunday at 10am on ITV.
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