Tabloids and the British Royal Family

-

By Simon Hodgson

In A.C.T.’s production of King Charles III, beginning tomorrow at The Geary Theater, the British royal family face what some consider their greatest nemesis: the British press. Here is a short history of their fraught relationship.

In the 1980s, the UK’s tabloid press was emboldened by its own success. Print runs were up, sex was selling, and the Sun newspaper was flush with the confidence of backing a political winner, after switching sides at the 1979 general election from the Labour Party to support Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative Party. Meanwhile, the royal family, so long considered untouchable, had gradually lost the goodwill it had built up during World War II. The Windsors were now fair game. And with a fresh–faced generation of princes and princesses getting divorced, Fleet Street smacked its lips.

British Tabloids. Photo by Graham Holliday, 2011. Courtesy of Flickr.
“The royal family’s popularity started to decline,” says King Charles III playwright Mike Bartlett, “when the generation of Edward, Anne, Andrew, and Charles got married, and then those marriages started to collapse. They collapsed in the way that any marriage would collapse. The decline was also down to the royal family making poor choices in how they presented themselves, with things like It’s a Royal Knockout [a dignity-destroying television fund–raiser, featuring royals in medieval costumes]. They started to look like an ancient, outdated joke.”

Over the next 25 years, the royal family would be slowly eviscerated, a death by a thousand cuttings by the British tabloids. Prince Andrew would be ridiculed for his marriage to rambunctious redhead Sarah Ferguson, who would later draw her own headlines for her relationships with various American lovers. Prince Harry would be excoriated by the Sun as “Harry the Nazi” after appearing in a poorly judged costume for a private party. And Prince Charles, the hapless, balding heir to the throne, would be derided as a loveless husband, labeled as a feckless father, and then cuckolded by his beautiful young wife Diana across the front pages of the nation’s newspapers.

Royal kiss–and–tell stories in the tabloids continued to draw millions of readers in the late ’90s, but the tide of public opinion was about to swing against the press. In 1997, Princess Diana was killed in a car accident. Despite her string of affairs while married to Prince Charles, the princess was popular with tabloid readers thanks to her humanitarian work, her relaxed manner with ordinary people, and her photogenic looks. When the inquest was held after Diana’s death, the blame was directed partly at her drunken chauffeur and partly at the pursuing pack of press photographers and paparazzi.

Bartlett’s choice of press freedom as one of King Charles III’s critical issues shows a nuanced understanding of British culture. Even if Charles himself has suffered at the hands of the tabloids, his character in the play recognizes the need for free speech. But in the last act, the tragic hero fails to resolve the issue of privacy and press freedom. He takes a brave and lonely stand, but will the weight of parliamentary tradition, together with opposition within his family, unite to thwart his vision of tolerance and trust?

A.C.T.’s production of King Charles III runs from September 14 to October 9. Click here to purchase tickets. For more on the British tabloid press, along with other articles about the cultural and historical context of the play, purchase Words on Plays.

Popular posts from this blog

“To Be or Not to Be”: The Iconic Speech’s Origins, Interpretations, and Impact

-
Image
By A.C.T. Publications Staff The opening line of Hamlet ’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy is theater’s most iconic, most referenced quote. What’s less known is the famous speech’s history, with Hamlet ’s earliest publications offering varying versions of its language. Also questioned is its meaning—is Hamlet contemplating suicide or is he weighing the consequences of murder? Though definitive answers are unlikely to arise, the questions “To be or not to be” asks have kept audiences, scholars, and actors engaged for centuries. Hamlet ’ s "To be or not to be" speech as it appears in the three original editions of the play. Photo by Georgelazenby. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons. The first edition, or First Quarto (Q1), of Hamlet was published in 1603. Because the text is much shorter than later editions and its language is less poetic, it is nicknamed the “Bad Quarto” by scholars. “To be or not to be” in Q1 reads as: To be, or not to be—ay, there’s the point. To die, ...
Read more

The American Sound: The Evolution of Jazz

-
Image
By Cecilia Padilla There is nothing so uniquely American as jazz music. In its simplest form, jazz embodies the essence of the American people: bold and inventive. The improvisation of the jazz ensemble can even be seen as a metaphor for the American democratic ideal: musicians playing solos have the liberty to express themselves as long as they adhere to the overall structure of the tune—individual freedom but with responsibility to the group. The evolution of jazz music also carries with it the social development of our nation from slavery to the swinging songs of World War II. Musically, jazz contributed immensely to the way contemporary musicians approach instrumentation, composition, and vocal arrangements. It is difficult to find a popular tune today that does not derive from such jazz icons as Joe Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, and Thelonious Monk. Jazz is the great equalizer; for more than a hundred years, it has been the common ground between blacks and whites, me...
Read more

A Hell of a Businessman: A Biography of Joe Glaser

-
By Simon Hodgson Born in 1897, Joe Glaser was the son of a successful Russian Jewish physician in Chicago. He originally intended to follow a similar career and entered medical school, but after passing out in the operating room, he realized he wasn’t cut out to be a doctor. He started off in business selling used cars, but found better luck managing prizefighters. In his biography of Al Capone, Laurence Bergreen notes, “Glaser’s power to fix fights earned him a reputation as a sage of boxing, especially among reporters.” With advanced word as to which fights were fixed, Glaser could predict the results—and even the number of rounds—of many bouts in Chicago. His connections with organized crime continued in his next career change, when he began running nightclubs and whorehouses in the South Side for the Chicago Outfit, the powerful underworld gang led by Capone. Glaser’s tendency toward illegal action nearly ended his career. In 1928, he was sentenced to ten years in prison for ...
Read more