In the new BritBox drama The Lady, the stories of both Sarah “Fergie” Ferguson, the Duchess of York, and her dresser, Jane Andrews, are examined. Andrews was convicted of murdering her partner, Thomas Cressman, in 2001, and most followers of the British royals know about Ferguson’s story. Can a fictionalized retelling of the Andrews case do both of them justice?
THE LADY: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
Opening Shot: “18th September 2000.” We see crime scene investigators in protective suits taking pictures of a murder scene.
The Gist: Entering the scene is DS Smart (Stephanie Street) and DCI Jim Dickie (Philip Glenister), and the victim has been identified as Thomas Cressman (Ed Speleers). Smart tells Dickie that the neighbors reported that Cressman had a live-in girlfriend, Jane Andrews (Mia McKenna-Bruce), but no one’s seen her.
We go back to 1981, when a young Jane watches the wedding of Diana Spencer and Prince Charles, then forward to 1988, when Jane, working in a department store in Lincolnshire, plans on advancing her fashion design career in London.
When she encounters her boyfriend, with whom she was going to move to the city, having sex with someone else, Jane contemplates an overdose. But then her parents, June and David (Claire Skinner, Daniel Ryan), tell her she’s gotten a letter from Buckingham Palace. At some point, Jane applied to a job to be a dresser for Sarah Ferguson (Natalie Dorman), the Duchess of York, and she’s being summoned for an interview.
Despite her working class upbringing and lack of experience, the duchess takes a liking to Jane during the interview and brings her on board. She seems a bit out of place until she decides to lean into the job, upgrading her wardrobe and hair, displaying some camaraderie with her colleagues and, most importantly, listening to Fergie when she complains about her crumbling marriage to the (now former) Prince Andrew and/or the vicious tabloid coverage about her looks, clothes and weight. For her part, Fergie takes an interest when Jane meets a boring IBM executive named Charles (Mark Stanley) and decides to settle down with him.
When Fergie finally decides to get a divorce, she knows that she’ll be exiled from “The Firm,” and the only confidant she takes with her is Jane. But at the same time, Jane becomes more obsessed with her “friend”, to the point where she starts dressing like her.
Cut to 2000; as Jane starts to become the primary person of interest in Cressman’s murder, the detectives pay the duchess a visit, figuring she might be the only one to convince her former aide to come out of hiding.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Written by Debbie O’Malley and directed by Lee Haven Jones, The Lady feels like it would work as a more-scandalous spinoff of The Crown (the two shows are both produced by Left Bank Productions).
Our Take: With The Lady, the temptation would have been to make the story as much about Fergie than it was about Jane Andrews, given how messy the Duchess of York’s time inside the royal family and her subsequent divorce was. But Andrews’ story might be even more compelling, and Mia McKenna-Bruce puts in a performance that shows just how complex Jane was.
It’s tough to play someone with an undiagnosed mental illness and not lean into the more fantastical aspects of that illness. What McKenna-Bruce manages to do is make Jane Andrews, into someone who is vulnerable and loyal, as well as someone who is calculating and emotionally fragile. Andrews seeks stability, which is why she settles down with the boring Charles, but at the same time enjoys being the confidant of someone as dynamic and powerful as Fergie, even as her boss displays many of the same fragilities that Jane herself has.
As the series progresses, we’ll see just how co-dependent Fergie and Jane become, and how Jane, in an attempt to feel more alive, comes into the life of her eventual victim, James Cressman. We tend to get a little annoyed at a back-and-forth timeline, but we also see that at some point, the timelines will merge, and the entire propulsion of the story will be about finding Jane and bringing her to trial.
Performance Worth Watching: Mia McKenna-Bruce is definitely the most compelling reason to watch The Lady, as she brings out Jane’s confidence and fragility, often in the same scene.
Sex And Skin: A couple of quick sex scenes, but not much in the way of skin.
Parting Shot: As Fergie calls and leaves Jane a message to contact the police, we see Jane looking in her mirror in the recent past, sporting red hair like her boss.
Sleeper Star: Natalie Dorman makes Fergie less cartoonish than this depiction could have been, showing how much strength the duchess had when she decided to leave Andrew and stop kowtowing to the Queen and “The Firm.”
Most Pilot-y Line: Most of the needle drops are about 4-5 years out of date, like one where Jane and her coworkers dance at a club to a-ha’s “Take On Me.” That might have been great in 1985, but not in 1988-89, when the scene takes place. The best needle drop is a montage to Roy Orbison’s “You’ve Got It,” where Jane has Fergie try on a much more contemporary wardrobe than what “The Firm” had her wearing to that point.
Our Call: STREAM IT. The Lady makes a compelling true crime story into a compelling drama through the performances by both McKenna-Bruce and Dormer, who try hard to make their famous characters nuanced and real.
How To Watch The Lady
If you’re new to BritBox, you can get started with two months at $2.75/month. After that, a subscription costs $10.99/month.
Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.