Think of a British TV series about the royal family that launched in 2016 and features some of Britain’s best writing and acting talent. No, not “The Crown” but “The Windsors,” the royal comedy show from Channel 4 that is poised to steal “The Crown’s” well, crown. A soap opera-style sitcom, it shows Charles, William, Harry and the rest of the royals as they’ve never been seen before. (Seriously. The first season finale saw Camilla, played by Haydn Gwynne, planting a bomb in the basement of Buckingham Palace to ensure her path to the throne.)
Where “The Crown” offers a sober, historical take on the royals, winning both critical plaudits and awards in the process, “The Windsors” is a cheeky younger sibling that has spent its life in the shadows. A spare to the heir, if you will. Created by writers Bert Tyler-Moore and George Jeffrie (“The Kumars,” “Spitting Image”), “The Windsors” launched seven years ago with comedy king Harry Enfield in the lead as a vain and infantilized Charles while Gwynne (who has also appeared in “The Crown” as a lady in waiting to the Queen) plays Camilla as a cartoon villain. So far the comedy has spawned three seasons, three specials (including a feature-length coronation episode set for next month) and even a stage show. A fourth season is in the works.
Tyler-Moore admits the show takes inspiration from “The Crown” as much as from the real-life royals. “I like ‘The Crown,’” he tells PvNew. “I think it’s weirdly deferential to the monarchy but I think it’s just brilliantly written.” Befitting of a show as self-aware and bonkers as “The Windsors,” the upcoming coronation special will even feature a nod to its Netflix counterpart. “There’s a reference to ‘The Crown,’ reveals Tyler-Moore. “And our characters are kind of aware of ‘The Crown.’ I mean, as they would be.”
Unlike the Netflix hit, “The Windsors” features a mash-up of real-life plot points (Megxit, William working as an air ambulance pilot) and utterly out-there storylines (Kate contracting Ebola; Beatrice and Eugenie becoming radicalized). Tyler-Moore says the real-life elements come straight from newspaper headlines rather than palace sources, but adds that he and Jeffrie both learned to tread a fine line between the real and absurdist elements: “The producers were very good at grounding us and making sure that it had a bit of satire and a bit of reality to in amongst all the madness as well.”
Tragically, in 2020 Jeffrie unexpectedly died aged 56, briefly throwing the show’s future into doubt. Jeffrie and Tyler-Moore had just completed the first draft of a screenplay for a West End adaptation of the series, titled “The Windsors: Endgame,” when he died of a heart attack, leaving Tyler-Moore to ensure the show went on. “We were just right in the middle of it and I had no other choice really,” Tyler-Moore recalls. “It felt like a no-brainer and so I just had to get on with the job of just trying to rewrite it and working with the stage director, Michael Fentiman.”
So when it came to embarking on the show’s fourth season alone, Tyler-Moore was in some ways already prepared. “It’s what George would have wanted, for me to carry on taking the piss out of the Windsors,” he quips with a touch of sadness. He is at pains to point out that Jeffrie is till “very much part of” the show. “We did all the hard work of it – of creating the style of it and the characters – we did all of that together,” says Tyler-Moor. “So he’s there. His DNA runs through everything that we do.”
In the middle of writing the fourth season, there was another death for Tyler-Moore to contend with, this time of Queen Elizabeth II. Although she didn’t ever appear on screen in “The Windsors,” the Queen was occasionally referenced in the show, albeit never as the butt of a joke. “Everyone just liked her so much and it just seemed a bit pointless to have a go at her when there’s so much else to have a go at about the royal family,” Tyler-Moore explains. “Because she was just like a sort of lovely old granny, wasn’t she really? Why would you want to be nasty or rip fun out of her?”
As the world went into mourning, the show’s executive producer Robert Wulff-Cochrane suggested a coronation special, which is set to air next month on Channel 4. Despite Charles’ elevation from prince to monarch, fans will be reassured to know that he is very much set to appear on screen, with Enfield reprising his role as the pampered prince-turned-king. “We didn’t not have a go at the Queen because she was the head of state,” Tyler-Moore explains. “It was because of her as a person, that people just universally liked her and respected her. I don’t think that’s the case with Charles. He’s still as vain and deluded and all the rest of it as he was when he was Prince Charles.”
Still, despite Tyler-Moore’s own mildly anti-royalist bent (“I just find that the logic of it, it’s just so weird,” he says of having a monarchy) he acknowledges that Charles won’t come out of “The Windsors’” coronation special too badly. “‘Cause he’s quite old now. And I think Harry [Enfield]’s brought a little bit of old man vulnerability to the part.”
One royal who won’t be reappearing in the show however is Prince Andrew (played by Tim Wallers) following Andrew’s public disgrace. “He just feels so creepy now,” says Tyler-Moore. “Our Andrew was always like a ‘Carry On’ version of Prince Andrew and we thought to present him in that kind of jocular way, which in a way is quite a nice way of presenting him, it’s just not quite right. It would have left a really bad taste in the mouth.”
But there will be some new additions, including King Charles’s sister-in-law Sophie Wessex (who is married to Charles’ youngest brother, Prince Edward) while Tyler-Moore hints that Season 4 may feature more about the next generation, including William’s eldest son Prince George. “I’ve got a little idea involving George, but I think we’ll do it so that we don’t see him,” he says. Because while “The Windsors” doesn’t hold back, even against the more remote royal relations such as Kate’s sister Pippa Middleton, who is regularly portrayed as a debauched social climber, Tyler-Moore is aware that he is satirizing a real family. (He’s even heard on the grapevine that Charles has watched the show.)
“Sometimes I just feel very weird about it, just how completely bound up my life is with theirs,” he says. “I make my living from taking the piss out of them and I just think that’s a bit odd. But it doesn’t stop me from saying anything. Because I don’t think we’re that nasty really. I mean there’s definitely some satirical bites here and there but I think all the characters love each other. At the end of the day, there’s a warmth to the show.”
