The Lady (Britbox) Review: Chasing Fairytales 

Britbox’s The Lady recounts the captivating story of Jane Andrews, a former royal dresser turned convicted murderer.

The world saw her kindness, grace and beauty and was utterly mesmerized by her charm. However, as history would later tell, this fairytale was not all it seemed and Diana was not treated kindly during her tenure as an official working member of the British Royal Family. 

There was one English woman in particular who felt quite captivated by the story of Princess Diana, and who would go on to enter the ecosystem of Buckingham Palace and British High Society just to find out what a cruel and cold place that glittering world could prove to be. Britbox’s latest true crime thriller, The Lady, follows the true life story of Jane Andrews, the woman who served as the Duchess of York’s personal dresser, and later was convicted of murdering her boyfriend, Thomas Cressman. 

The Lady opens on the day Cressman (Ed Speleers, of You) is found dead in his London flat with Jane (Mia McKenna-Bruce, of How to Have Sex), his live-in girlfriend of two years, nowhere to be seen. However, when we actually meet Jane, it is through a flashback nearly 20 years earlier, in 1981, on the day of Princess Diana’s wedding. She sits in her home in Northern England with a tiara on, sketching Diana’s dress and glued to her television set. As far as Jane is concerned, in this moment, there is no one more beautiful or happy in the world. This wouldn’t be the first, nor the last time Jane would escape into the world she imagined Diana lived in, in order to escape her own bleak reality. 

Cut to 1988, Jane is still channeling Princess Diana; however, now she is doing so as a sales tactic to sell bras at M&S. Determined to leave behind her grim world for the life she’s sure she’s destined to live, she answers a classified ad for a personal dresser position in London. Soon after, Jane is sent a letter from Buckingham Palace with an opportunity to interview as a dresser for Sarah Ferguson (Natalie Dormer, of The Wasp), who, at the time, served as the Duchess of York. 

When she gets the stamp of approval from the Duchess herself, Jane moves to London and becomes a part of the Buckingham Palace staff. Even though she finds herself struggling to fit the typical mold of staffers there, she is able to shoulder her way into the right rooms with the right crowds at the mere mention of her close relationship with the Duchess. 

Although Jane eventually finds herself falling out of favor with and being fired by the former royal, she regains her footing by forming romantic relationships with the men she’s met through the high-power social circles her time with the Duchess gave her access to. After these circles make it clear she is no longer wanted if she is no longer attached to the Duchess, Jane thinks her shot at a fairytale has finally collapsed. That is, until she meets the effortlessly charismatic Tommy Cressman and her dreams of getting her perfect ending reawakens after all. Or so she thinks.

The Lady is a tight, sharp and captivating dramatic mini series that blends themes of class, society and gender into a compelling true crime saga. Debbie O’Malley’s script takes the real story of Jane Andrews and fills in parts of her life unseen to build an interior world for an infamous tabloid tale and give possible motivations behind Andrews’ scandalous, cold blooded crime. 

O’Malley’s script wisely paints a picture of Jane’s rise and fall within Buckingham and London as compared to that of Princess Diana’s time with the crown. O’Malley framed Princess Diana as Jane’s ultimate hero, yet shows Jane doesn’t understand that while Diana may look like the happiest and most beautiful girl in the world, she feels utterly helpless in her position. Jane has been chasing the fairytale she thinks Diana is living her whole life, but when she gets close enough to see her dreams playing out before her, working in Buckingham and being a part of British high society, she realizes this world is not all that it seems and understands they will never consider her one of them.

The heartbreak of her dream shattering before her, the loss of her hero and the weight of her lifelong struggle with mental health issues push Jane into a state where she believes she is acting out of pure survival. Her romance with Tommy seems like the last life boat on a sinking ship and Jane refuses her story to be that of someone who almost made her dreams come true. 

Unfortunately, other aspects of The Lady are not as tightly constructed. By the last episode of the mini series, Jane feels flat and lacks the evolution and depth she had in the previous episodes. The passion and life behind her seems to have extinguished right when viewers are most looking forward to hearing from her about what has happened. The last episode as a whole fails to possess the same allure as the previous episodes, rendering the police investigation and trial as the least exciting aspects of the entire series.

Additionally, for as much as the series relies on the exploration of the tumultuous relationship between Jane and Tommy to carry the weight of the “why” in the crime aspect of the series, it makes no effort to explore the claims about their troubled dynamic. It simply says, in many, many words, that no one has a clear idea of what their relationship was like, but everyone had their theories. This leaves the second half of the series script feeling lopsided and underdeveloped as compared to the captivating first two episodes. 

The Lady draws you in with the promise of true crime, royal scandal and dramatic events and, largely, it does deliver. Mia McKenna-Bruce gives a complex performance as a woman scandalized by tabloids but suffering greatly in her own mind, while Debbie O’Malley’s script attempts to build an inner world worthy of exploration. Unfortunately for the potency of the story, the series ends up losing steam in its second half, but nonetheless can be considered a mostly compelling watch. 

The Lady will be available to stream on Britbox from March 18, 2026, with new episodes airing weekly.