The BritBox miniseries The Lady can be summed up in one quote from its premiere. “I just think I’d be better suited to a palace,” Jane Andrews says, and that immediately sets the tone. The actors in the four-part drama are intriguing, but the script never outruns the judgments that the audience will make.

The Lady is another true crime adaptation; Andrews was convicted of murdering her boyfriend Thomas Cressman in 2001. It’s best not to look her up before watching, as there are other legal and mental health issues that paint a very unflattering picture of who Jane Andrews is. It’s understandable, then, that The Lady writer Debbie O’Malley wanted to paint a more sympathetic picture—to present Andrews more fully than media coverage has then or now. Unfortunately, the miniseries isn’t as successful in that respect as it would like to be.

This is very similar to A Cruel Love: The Ruth Ellis Story, which also streamed on BritBox and was also directed by Lee Haven Jones. Both want the audience to reconsider their position on infamous female criminals by showing the context that got them to that point. The Lady is a straightforward rags-to-riches tale, as blue-collar Jane is mocked by her peers and her boyfriend cheats on her before she gets the job of assistant dresser to Sarah Ferguson, then the Duchess of York. The scripts make a concerted effort to get the audience to sympathize with Jane. Yet the best thing about Jane is the performance given by Vampire Academy‘s Mia McKenna-Bruce. She’s able to handle the frequent transitions from doe-eyed happiness at her sudden upgrade to crying at being bullied or angry and sullen. As much as Jane is treated badly, there’s no doubt that she’s also part of the problem—and The Lady doesn’t always acknowledge that.

McKenna-Bruce is asked to do a lot emotionally, though, and she juggles it all deftly. Game of Thrones alum Natalie Dormer portrays Sarah, who becomes Jane’s friend slash idol, and does it with a certain tongue-in-cheek appeal. Dormer brings a brash attitude and charm to the role. But audiences will also be aware of the amount of negative press Sarah has received, including recently, so it’s hard not to look at Dormer’s version of Sarah through that lens, too. And therein lies the problem with The Lady: it wants to rebut or at least explain some of the negativity that both Jane and Sarah dealt with, yet at times it ends up reinforcing it.

From a production standpoint, the show plays with some tried-and-true ideas, such as the use of period pop songs to make it clear to the audience that they’re in a different decade. There’s also the device of telling the story in reverse, which has become much more common recently. The investigation into Cresswell’s murder serves as a light framework around the story of Jane’s life, until the plot catches up with present day. Other shows have used this format better, but it is a treat to see Philip Glenister play the lead detective. The Life on Mars star is the perfect choice to portray a no-nonsense officer; his gruffness acts as a counterbalance to Dormer and McKenna-Bruce’s more energetic performances.

The Lady will intrigue anyone who likes true crime or stories about royal scandals; this isn’t the first time Andrews’ story has been dissected in the media. And to its credit, it’s certainly not as sensational as those docuseries. But the project is also missing anything new to hang its proverbial hat on, either in terms of entertainment or in getting BritBox viewers to think about either Jane or Sarah differently. Audiences will remember McKenna-Bruce and Dormer creating big characters, but not much else.

The Lady premieres March 18, 2026 on BritBox. Photo Credit: Jonathan Ford/Courtesy of BritBox.

Article content is (c)2020-2026 Brittany Frederick and may not be excerpted or reproduced without express written permission by the author. Follow me on Twitter at @BFTVTwtr and on Instagram at @BFTVGram. For story pitches, contact me at tvbrittanyf@yahoo.com.