My Cultural Enhancement: A Royal Week

 At the start of my first seminar back at university after Christmas I was asked for the dreaded Icebreaker. It seemed an odd task since we were entering our final semester of third year and I hadn't been asked for one since welcome week but I went with it. I knew it'd be different to the usual 'favorite food', 'last book you read' ones of first year so I prepared myself. 'A Cultural Recommendation' - came the request from my teacher. Luckily I was sat on the back row so I had time to come up with something but it didn't help that my mind had gone completely blank. As people gave their suggestions of sophisticated books, films and unique travel locations, my mind remained blank so I gave the extremely inaccessible proposal of wine tasting in South Australia. I didn't intend on sounding like an alcoholic but it was the only semi-sophisticated culturally related thing I could think of recently doing, I felt severely uncultured. This feeling has lessened this week however, as I now feel what I have termed 'culturally enhanced', and here's how.

  Being slightly hungover on a Sunday is what began my cultural journey and the beauty of Netflix. Flicking through, one of the top suggestions was 'The Crown' - a new series by Netflix which has been beautifully produced. In my opinion it successfully depicts our wonderful Royal Family in a more down to earth manner, highlighting the difficulties with being so famous and having such a huge responsibility and reputation to uphold, despite often being criticised for doing 'nothing'. I have learnt facts I did not know such as how terribly ill King George VI was throughout much of his life and what scandal Princess Margaret was part of causing tension between herself and our Queen (her sister). 

  A part which particularly struck me was the panic surrounding the death of King George VI about getting hold of his daughter and heir to the throne, Princess Elizabeth. She was in Nairobi on the Commonwealth tour when the news broke and officials found it incredibly hard to contact her. The race was on between themselves and the media, particularly the BBC, who also desperately wanted to announce the news to the world. I mean, how awful must that be for the world to find out about your fathers death before you, not to mention having that news on top of being the new Queen with all the responsibilities all at once. It amazed me how such events were dealt with and it made me appreciate the Royal Family and our Queen so much more. 

  With the series being so beautifully done, full of great acting from the likes of Matt Smith and Claire Foy giving me a fantastic insight into the Royals, I wanted to recommend it to my Grandparents who recommended 'The Kings Speech' to me. Despite getting semi-annoyed by Colin Firth's acted stutter towards the end (oops, sorry!), I thought this too was a brilliant representation of the struggles that King George VI went through in his build up to being King, with the constant fear and torment that public speaking brought him.

  So there you have it, my culturally enhancing week with two highly recommended on-screen representations of our wonderful Royal Family. 

  Your're welcome and enjoy!