Mrs. Review – This crazy drama about Sarah Ferguson completely fails to read the room | Sarah Ferguson

‘T“His drama was inspired by a true story,” the woman announces, ushering us into the formally lit waiting room that serves as the miniseries’ introductory disclaimer. The italics continue: “Some names have been changed, and some characters, events, and scenes have been created and combined for dramatic purposes.” Well, we think it’s the unbalanced piano lurching and stumbling in the background. “Created and merged”? This, surely, is the language of a school theater project, with its sticky guns and serious pretensions, not the language of a lavish ITV four-parter focusing on the real-life rise and fall and eventual murder conviction of Jane Andrews, a former M&S employee from Grimsby who, from 1988 to 1997, worked as a clothing designer for Sarah Ferguson, then the Duchess of York. This certainly does not bode well.

Still. The Lady is produced by Left Bank Pictures, which also produced The Crown. It is written by Debbie O’Malley, who did so many wonderful things with Channel 5’s unexpectedly excellent ‘reboot’ of All Creatures Great and Small. So, Let’s give her the benefit of the doubt. And we do. Until 16 minutes into the first episode, when Sarah Ferguson (Natalie Dormer of Game of Thrones) crashes a job interview with Jane Andrews (Mia McKenna Bruce of Agatha Christie’s Seven Dials) at Buckingham Palace and… oh. my darling. Any hopes that Dame would provide a serious and sensitive portrayal of the complex real-life events that led a mentally unstable young woman to brutally murder her partner are immediately dashed. What we get instead is a garish mess. Something strange and infuriating that oscillates between invasive royal soap, plodding police procedural, edgy coming-of-age segment and tense domestic drama with the agility of a pantomime horse at a black-tie buffet.

Speaking of which, here comes Dormer Ferguson, who storms into the aforementioned interview in a polka dot dress and directs the full force of her publicly funded bulge at the novel’s quivering young protagonist.

“Have you come a long way, Jane Andrews?” she wonders, before wondering if the 21-year-old’s decision to move to London might be because she finds “it’s so bleak up north, ha-ha.”

The ambitious and fragile Andrews is immediately impressed and the pair soon bond over chiffon bows and their erratic love life. Andrews doggedly buried her Lincolnshire vowels and a myriad of mental health issues in pursuit of the high life.

Threaded throughout the froth (shopping montages! Champagne receptions! Depeche Mode just can’t get enough!) is the police investigation into Andrews’ brutal September 2000 murder of Thomas Cressman; The former stockbroker who reportedly angered the royal aide by refusing to marry her. That shrill sound you can hear is one of many tonal gear shifts where reality crushes the fun; The dual timeline tramples great hunks of unpleasant facts on the royal carpet. So here comes DCI Jim Dickie (the never-tired Philip Glenister) in his raincoat, ranting loudly about the crime scene as the camera zooms in on the victim’s bloody feet (“Local textbook, eh?”).

What a crazy mixture. Scenes in which an increasingly unstable Andrews tries to seek comfort from her well-meaning mother (Clare Skinner) offer tantalizing flashes of a more subtle drama and the complexities lurking beneath the foam. But then we get to where Fergie screams “Ollie” while trying on a big hat and… well.

The shadow cast by the former Duchess’s presence is so huge that it’s impossible to take the rest of it seriously. And even though Ferguson’s ex-husband doesn’t appear, there’s still something uniquely depressing about the lady’s failure to read the (royal) room. (Following recent revelations about Ferguson’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, Dormer said she would donate her fee to charity.)

Ultimately, for all its royal bells and casos, and its creations and combinations for fantastical dramatic purposes, The Lady is just another TV series that turns a grim, disturbing real-life crime into entertainment. And certainly, certainlyHave we had enough of these?