Prince Regent

Prince Regent is a BBC historical drama series from 1979 about the misspent life of King George the Fourth, concentrating on his time as Prince Regent during the madness of his father, King George the Third. Consequently it takes place over the period 1785 to 1820, a much shorter span than many BBC historical dramas which took place over multiple generations. At only eight episodes, this may reflect the fact that there is less of a story to tell than in, say, I Claudius or Fall of Eagles.

The title role is played by Peter Egan, who around the time this was made seemed to specialise in playing unpleasant characters with selfish motivations who get by on their wits and charisma, such as in Big Breadwinner Hog or The Organization. This is no exception, except that here the Prince Regent doesn't have quite the wits or charisma that he thinks he does, his ego having been inflated throughout his life because he is surrounded by fawning courtiers and flatterers.

Chief among these are the leading Whigs of the period, Fox (Keith "Striker" Barron) and Sheridan (Clive "Deputy Chief Caretaker" Merrison), who are in opposition during the reign of George the Third and hope to get back into government when the prince takes the throne. They continually manipulate the prince, getting him to do what they want while always telling him what he wants to hear. We as viewers are privileged to hear what they say to the prince's face and how this contrasts with what they say behind his back. In the end it doesn't do them much good, since George the Third outlives most of them.

The Prince Regent is not a sympathetic character. As well as having an overinflated opinion of his own abilities, he is also a massive hypocrite. After his arranged marriage to Princess Caroline of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel he is outraged by the merest whiff of scandal about the possibility of his wife having an affair, even though he is shown to have many mistresses of his own. Indeed, the series kicks off with a plotline about the prince starting his affair with Maria Fitzherbert (Susannah York), who he secretly marries (or rather tries to marry, since the marriage is later discovered to not be a legally binding one) even though she is Catholic - a big no-no for a member of the royal family, and a national scandal when the rumour of it leaks out.

The prince's attitude to his wife only reflects the (double) standards of the time, with society winking at most of his affairs (except as regards Catholics) and him never expecting or receiving any significant consequences as a result of any of them. Meanwhile his wife's affairs are considered to be treason, with her and any third party potentially facing the death penalty.

In the final part George, now the king upon his father's death at the start of the episode, gets the government to put his wife on trial in the House of Lords so that he can divorce her. But her clever lawyers get the new queen off even though they know (and we see) she is guilty, by discrediting the prosecution witnesses - the government only agreed to prosecute the queen for her affairs with foreigners, so the defence preys upon the prejudices of the Lords by intimating that the foreigners are all untrustworthy.

The one time I felt sympathy for the Prince Regent was upon the death of his daughter Charlotte Augusta (Cherie Lunghi), when Egan conveyed real and profound grief, an emotion we were not used to seeing from the prince. This despite the cumbersome padded costume and facial prosthetics that increasingly hampered his acting as the series went on - they showed the prince becoming fatter and fatter as time went on (as history tells us he did), but Egan was unable to move naturalistically under the, er, weight of them.

Peter Egan may have been the nominal star, but the show is absolutely stolen by Nigel Davenport as King George the Third, playing his madness to perfection in episodes two through to seven. It appears comical at first, mere eccentricity in the aging king, but it soon develops into serious bouts of insanity, and Davenport nails the transition. His finest moments come after the king has been 'treated' by the cruel Dr Willis and son, expressing his fear when shown the straitjacket they mean to put him in.

The two Georges were very much the main characters through the whole series. Other actors that deserve calling out for giving fine performances in relatively minor roles include David "Monkey" Collings as Prime Minister Pitt the Younger, and Frances White as George the Third's wife, Queen Charlotte. Herself no stranger to BBC historical drama series, Charlotte's steadfast support of her mad husband is a very different role from Julia, daughter of Augustus in I Claudius. As in, the daughter out of

"IS THERE ANYONE IN ROME WHO HAS NOT SLEPT WITH MY DAUGHTER?!!"

I don't often notice when boom mikes make their occasional intrusions into the top of shot, but this one, albeit brief, made it further into shot than most.

It is impossible to watch this series without being reminded of Blackadder the Third, given the common setting and character of the Prince Regent. Eight years separated them, so it can hardly be claimed that this was an immediate inspiration on that series of Blackadder, nor that Blackadder the Third was a direct parody of Prince Regent. It s unlikely that the BBC would have permitted this latter scenario had there been a lot less time between them, such as the way they forbade the makers of Doctor Who from producing a vampire-themed story at the same time as the BBC was also doing an adaptation of Dracula.

But with only three channels in 1979, this must have been watched by a fair proportion of the viewing public at the time, so maybe it was recent enough to still be present at the backs of the minds of the makers and viewers of Blackadder the Third, giving an unspoken meta-context to the series setting, helping it to succeed despite being a less well-known period of history than, say, the Elizabethan period of Blackadder 2.