Name: Abdication: A Very British Coup
Genre: Documentary
Released: 2006-12-12
Duration: 59 min
Rating: 7
Cast: Stanley Baldwin, Denys Blakeway, Winston Churchill

Supposedly Innovative Documentary that Turns the Existing Historical Evidence Around

A VERY British COUP announces itself as being something very different - a radical new interpretation of a familiar tale. King Edward VIII did not abdicate because he had to, but was the victim of the Establishment which did not like his behavior and considered him a threat to the country's future.

Basically that's about it. We are guided through a familiar interpretation of the Prince of Wales as a fun-loving, highly popular figure (in contrast to his stuffed shirt father), whose accession to the throne in January 1936 was heralded as a new and refreshing "Golden Age." He increased his popularity through goodwill visits to areas suffering at the height of the Great Depression - for example South Wales, where his suggestion that "something must be done" was taken up as a clarion-call by national and local media alike.

Where Edward VIII really got into trouble was his insistence on wanting to marry Wallis Simpson, a divorcée who wormed his way into his affections and rendered him so passionately in love that he was either unable or unwilling to contemplate any alternative. A solution was proposed by Winston Churchill - a morganatic marriage whereby the couple could marry but Mrs. Simpson would not inherit the title of Queen - but this was evidently rejected by Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin.

Denys Blakeway's documentary accused the Establishment of a multitude of sins, from intransigence to prejudice, from traditionalism to self- interest. Many of those accusations might have been true, but the King was not quite the innocent that the documentary asked us to believe. He was a stubborn man who had little or no grasp of contemporary realities in Britain at that time: to insist that "something must be done" about the poor implies that someone else should undertake that responsibility, leaving him to continue his hedonistic existence of holidays, royal visits and shooting trips. The King was also capable of some remarkable errors of judgment - witness his courting of Adolf Hitler once he had abdicated.

In truth, the evidence suggests that the abdication was inevitable once the King had chosen to flout convention. No one in their right mind would have allowed him to marry a divorcée at that time; it was simply not the thing to do in a country where divorce as a whole was exceptionally difficult to obtain (and often involved arranging clandestine meetings where the plaintiff was consciously caught in flagrante delicto with a woman not his wife).

Times have changed a lot since then, but the program was guilty of imposing a contemporaneous perspective on material that simply would not accommodate it.

The documentary is a form of non-fiction storytelling that aims to present factual information, insights, and perspectives on real-world subjects, events, issues, or people. Documentaries can cover a wide range of topics, including history, science, culture, social issues, nature, biographies, and more.

Dziga Vertov in Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

The story of Edward VIII's abdication in 1936 told from the King's perspective.

The Biggest Movies and TV Coming in September

See which big screen releases you can watch from the comfort of your couch.

Theatrical Releases Coming to Streaming

Get a closer look at these actors from their many TV and streaming series roles.

Abdication: A Very British Coup

Photos

Top Cast12

User reviews1

Related interests

Storyline

Top picks

Details

Box office

Tech specs

Contribute to this page

More to explore

Recently viewed