The nine-day queen keeps her head this time. Emily Bader’s Lady Jane Grey outwits assassins, zealots and her own arranged marriage to Edward Bluemel’s cursed Guildford Dudley, whose family can flip between human and horse at will. The pilot, directed by Jamie Babbit, sets the tone: a public execution becomes a punch-line, Oliver Chris’s arch narrator promises "no more sad endings", and the soundtrack swerves from lute covers of “I Want It That Way” to a barnyard brawl scored like a superhero showdown. Eight hours later, the body count is lower than in the history books, the sex count is higher, and Amazon quietly cancelled the whole thing three weeks after release.
Amazon Prime Video marketed the 27 June 2024 drop as a summer romp, but the numbers never matched the noise. Gemma Burgess and Meredith Glynn adapted the YA trilogy by Hand, Ashton and Meadows, padding out the source’s screwball romance with extra cousins, extra conspiracies and extra shapeshifters. Anna Chancellor steals every scene as Jane’s scheming mother, while Rob Brydon plays the Duke of Northumberland like a Tudor Alan Partridge. Critics praised the pilot’s zip, then watched the pace sag; viewers binged, meme’d, forgot. By August the sets were struck, the horses retired, and history had reverted to its original ending, minus one streaming service.
Production Details
Prime Video / 1 Season / 8 Episodes / 2024 - Present
Created by: Gemma Burgess
Showrunner(s): Meredith Glynn, Walter F. Parkes, Laurie MacDonald
Producer(s): Paula McBreen
Music: Rael Jones
Main Cast
Emily Bader as Lady Jane Grey
Edward Bluemel as Lord Guildford Dudley
Anna Chancellor as Lady Frances Grey
Rob Brydon as Lord Dudley
Kate O'Flynn as Princess Mary
Henry Ashton as Lord Stan Dudley
Oliver Chris as Narrator (voice)
Dominic Cooper as Lord Seymour
Robyn Betteridge as Margaret Grey
Isabella Brownson as Katherine Grey
Jordan Peters as King Edward VI
Abbie Hern as Princess Bess
