A British television channel plans to screen what it calls a “factually accurate” television drama that depicts Queen Elizabeth II’s younger sister, Princess Margaret, having sex and taking drugs.
Channel 4 described “The Queen’s Sister” as “a witty and irreverent royal romp.” One scene features the princess in a lesbian kiss, while another shows her smoking a “strange cigarette” at a party, the channel said Thursday.
“I think some people will find it quite arresting and challenging,” said Kevin Lygo, Channel 4’s director of television. “It’s factually accurate and it’s a racy romp.”
Francis Hopkinson, Channel 4’s senior commissioning editor for drama, said the program “shows the excesses of hedonism” but “wasn’t intended as an expose.”
Hopkinson said it was based on interviews and research from existing sources.
Channel 4 said it planned to broadcast the program in late November.
Margaret died in February 2002 at age 71.
Lygo said the drama captured Margaret “in the late fifties and early sixties when she was absolutely the most glamorous public female figure in a Diana-like way in her own era and then it all went a bit wrong.”