There’s a new royal baby, which means the world is once again caught up in obsessing over the British monarchy. Here on Hypable, we love our fictional kings and queens, but they’re usually wielding swords or riding dragons. However, if you can’t get enough of contemporary royals and modern-day fairytales, these recommendations should feed your appetite.
Why are we obsessed with royalty? Is it because, throughout history, kings and queens were the first real celebrities, and we’ve just gone with that? Is it some sort of wish fulfillment – that everybody wants to be (or marry) a prince or princess, in their deepest childish hearts? Is it patriotism or a love of tradition and history? Is it just a clear and recognizable storytelling format? Who knows.
The fact of the matter is, it’s 2015, a really rich young couple just had a baby girl, and half the world stopped to rejoice. On May 2, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge welcomed a daughter, Princess Charlotte Elizabeth Diana, and you were either saying the words “royal baby” or thoroughly sick of hearing the words “royal baby.”
Because of this undefinable obsession, entertainment about medieval royalty – either based in fact, like Reign or The Tudors, or fantasy, from Disney to Game of Thrones, has always, and will always, be a big hit with a huge audience of people. Historical biopics of more recent royal stories, like The King’s Speech and The Young Victoria, tend to receive accolades as beautiful pieces of art and remain firmly categorized as “elegant period drama” rather than “royal family fanfiction.”
However, fictional depictions of present-day royalty tend to not be viewed in quite the same light. Perhaps in 75 years, a movie about the romance between Wills and Kate will win an Oscar, but right now, that kind of thing is relegated to Lifetime and Hallmark. Loving the modern royals is kind of a guilty pleasure for a lot of people.
If you’re caught up in the royal baby hype or if you just love stories about present-day royals in general – real or fictional – make sure you check out all of these recommendations. From the romantic to the satirical, the award-winning to the utterly trashy, there’s something for everyone.
‘The Royal We’
The Royal We is the newest release from Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan, best known as the creators of comedy fashion blog Go Fug Yourself. The novel’s synopsis reads a bit like the aforementioned Hallmark cliche – an American commoner meeting, and ultimately marrying, the heir to the British throne – but it’s meant to, just like the cover art is meant to reference Wills and Kate’s wedding kiss. Trust us. They know what they’re doing. If you know anything about the Fug Girls, you’ll know that this isn’t your average romance novel. These women make it their job to know the ins and outs of royalty in relation to pop culture, they love those crazy kids, and The Royal We is a deft and lively, meticulously researched, and surprisingly empathetic tribute to life in that particular, unrenounceable spotlight.
The book opens on the eve of the wedding of the century. Bex and Nick, that is, Rebecca Porter from Iowa and His Royal Highness Prince Nicholas of Wales, are about to tie the knot while the world watches. It then flashes back and charts the course of the couple’s relationship from their first meeting at Oxford and Bex’s introduction to the (fictional, but historically plausible) royal family – and yes, there’s even a rakish, redheaded “spare” to fulfill all your deepest Harry needs. The Royal We is an honest, funny, and compassionate account of falling in love with a person who comes with the baggage of being a prince. You’ll be sniggering one page in and crying before the story is done.
‘The Royals’
Like The Royal We, The Royals follows the goings-on of an entirely fictional British royal family, but unlike the Fug Girls, E! either has no clue about how stuff really works for the royals, or they just don’t care. The show starts out with the news of the death of Prince Robert, the heir to the British throne, and we meet his family – King Simon, Queen Helena, and twins Liam and Eleanor. Simon blames himself for Robert’s death and considers suggesting a referendum to abolish the monarchy himself, Liam’s trying to step up to the plate as a good new heir while also falling in love with an American Kate Middleton lookalike, and party princess Eleanor’s being blackmailed with a sex tape. Helena and the king’s brother, Cyrus, conspire to keep the monarchy in good graces so that they get to hold onto the lifestyle they’re accustomed to.
This is a scandalous royal family, obviously – they wear sexy clothes, take drugs in public, and sleep with the help. For those of us who know anything about tradition and protocol – info that tends to go hand in hand with being a contemporary royal obsessive – the lack of accuracy in The Royals will make you flinch. Make the characters and plots as farfetched as you like, no problem, but there’s no such thing as the “Queen of England,” Helena. That isn’t the correct phrasing, so stop shouting it. This show is unbelievably ridiculous, but what were you expecting from the E! network’s first scripted drama? It’s the ultimate guilty pleasure and we’re secretly thrilled it’s been renewed for season 2.
‘The Princess Diaries’
The ten Princess Diaries novels, originally published between 2000 and 2009, recount the journal entries of teenager Mia Thermopolis during her high school years after she discovers that she’s actually Amelia Mignonette Grimaldi Thermopolis Renaldo, the heir to the small European country of Genovia. But if you’re picturing Anne Hathaway and think you know it all, think again. While the film adaptations of The Princess Diaries are enjoyable, they’re some of the worst offenders in book-to-movie history in terms of accuracy – the novels are set in New York City, Mia’s personality is totally different, her princely father is alive, and while her grandmother does teach her everything she needs to know to be a proper princess, she ain’t no benevolent Julie Andrews. The real Grandmere is a domineering, crotchety old woman (and she’s absolutely hilarious.)
Basic facts aside, the tone of the books are very different from the movies. They’re much more relatable, jammed full of teenage troubles and pop-culture references – they even reference the Anne Hathaway movies as inaccurate biopics that exist within Mia’s world! Since leaving off Mia’s story at high school graduation, author Meg Cabot has sporadically posted blogs from the princess as she juggles college, royal duties and an attempt at a normal life. If you’ve seen the movies but never read the books, now is the perfect time to get invested, because on June 2, The Princess Diaries returns with Volume XI: Royal Wedding, which will follow the story of a now 25-year-old Mia and her engagement to longtime boyfriend Michael.
‘The Queen’
This Academy Award-winning drama is about as far as you can get from “guilty pleasure” when it comes to taking an interest in modern royals. The Queen, starring Helen Mirren and Michael Sheen, focuses on the choices and protocol of the government and the British royal family following the sudden death of Diana, Princess of Wales in August 1997. There were opposing views: Queen Elizabeth thought it appropriate to treat Diana’s death as a private incident rather than a state matter due to her no longer officially being royal by marriage, and Prime Minister Tony Blair, backed by Prince Charles, believed that an official response to the outpouring of grief for a public figure was necessary, despite the royal family’s private conflict and difficulties with Diana as a person.
At the time of Diana’s death, Blair had just gained office and his promise to modernize Britain gained him a lot of anti-monarchy supporters, but his work with the royal family during this crisis gave him a newfound respect for the Queen, much to the dismay of his Labour Party advisors. Helen Mirren won the Oscar, the Golden Globe, the SAG Award, the BAFTA and over 20 other awards for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II – a role she reprised in The Audience, a stage play by The Queen screenwriter Peter Morgan. Additionally, Morgan has penned two other movies – The Deal and The Special Relationship – that also feature Michael Sheen as Tony Blair.
‘The Uncommon Reader’
As opposed to the grave and respectful take on royal life behind the scenes seen in The Queen – Helen Mirren’s performance was actually praised by Queen Elizabeth herself – there are quite a few irreverent portrayals of the current royal family in fiction. One of the more famous was The Queen and I, by Adrian Mole author Sue Townsend, which featured the royals losing their status thanks to a political party that abolished the monarchy, and being sent to live in a council housing estate, and a sequel 15 years later, Queen Camilla. However, those pale in comparison to The Uncommon Reader, a novella by one of Britain’s most respected literary voices, Alan Bennett.
Rather than plain old poking fun, Bennett’s take on Her Maj is a beautiful, quotable introspective work that’s laced with humor and irony. The title refers to the Queen herself – a play on the phrase “common reader” – who after a lifetime of duty, develops an interest, and then a passion, for books after a chance encounter with a mobile library intended for Buckingham Palace staff. The novella explores the Queen’s friendship with a young book-loving kitchenhand, how someone with her unique life experience might interpret certain works of literature from Proust to Plath, and the consequences of the monarch’s increasingly distracting obsession. This is highbrow satire at its best – and a book like this is something only Alan Bennett could get away with.
‘Kings’
Kings is a modern re-telling of the Biblical story of King David, set in a fictional kingdom called Gilboa that resembles the present-day United States. King Silas Benjamin, played by Ian McShane, believes himself divinely anointed to rule after uniting three warring kingdoms. When David Shepherd, a young soldier, destroys a Goliath-class tank (get it?) and rescues a captive officer who turns out to be Prince Jack, the royal family honors David and makes him into a public figure, but Silas becomes disturbed when he witnesses an event that makes him believe that God no longer favors him and that David is fated to be the next king.
NBC cancelled Kings after one season, which is a shame, as the series had a lot more story to tell and a lot of potential to improve. Kings was a great concept for a show that was made maybe five years too early or picked up by the wrong network. It’s basically an alternate universe political drama – Gilboa is an absolute monarchy, rather than a constitutional one, so the setting is more like the White House than a royal court, with all the double crossing and contemporary social issues that a President would have to deal with. The show still has a bit of a fandom, possibly due to Sebastian Stan showing off the primary skill sets listed on his resume – crying, daddy issues, military trauma and kissing boys, although it doesn’t Go There between his Jack (the biblical Jonathan) and Christopher Egan’s David, a historical partnership that has a lot of weight behind it and that has long been theorized as romantic.