Jane Andrews Now: The Lady drama reopens wounds as reviews and family reaction collide
The four-part drama The Lady has pushed the question of jane andrews now back into the spotlight, reopening grief for the family of Tom Cressman and provoking sharply divided reaction to how the series portrays Sarah Ferguson and Andrews herself.
Production credits, creative framing and an explicit disclaimer
The Lady is presented as a four-part miniseries produced by Left Bank Pictures and written by Debbie O’Malley. The show opens with a formal on-screen statement: “This drama has been inspired by a true story, ” followed by the lines “Some names have been changed” and “some characters, events and scenes have been created and merged for dramatic purposes. ” One review called the finished programme a gaudy mess whose version of Sarah Ferguson overshadows everything; another headline singled out Mia McKenna-Bruce, saying she excels in the Jane Andrews drama.
Jane Andrews Now: casting, period flourishes and a disruptive palace scene
Natalie Dormer plays Sarah Ferguson and Mia McKenna-Bruce plays Jane Andrews. The series opens with a scene 16 minutes into episode one in which Ferguson bursts into Andrews’s job interview at Buckingham Palace wearing a polka-dot frock and a conspicuous bouffant. The exchange includes lines such as “Have you come far, Jane Andrews?” and a mocking aside about it being “too grim ’oop north, hah hah. ” The production deploys shopping montages, champagne receptions and the Depeche Mode track “Just Can’t Get Enough” to underscore Andrews’s ascent into a very different life.
Andrews’s background, role in the royal household and private struggles
The series stresses that Jane Andrews was a former M&S employee from Grimsby and that she served as a dresser to Sarah Ferguson from 1988 to 1997. It depicts a young, ambitious Andrews—described on screen as 21 at the time of the palace interview—trying to bury her Lincolnshire vowels and her mental health problems while pursuing the high life. Scenes also show Andrews seeking comfort from her mother, played by Claire Skinner.
The killing of Tom Cressman and the police response
The programme intercuts the rise-and-fall material with the police investigation into the killing of Tom Cressman. The context material states that Cressman, a businessman, was attacked with a cricket bat and fatally stabbed while he slept at the London home he shared with Jane Andrews in 2000, with the police probe shown alongside the period social scenes. DCI Jim Dickie, played by Philip Glenister and described in one review as “never-wearier, ” surveys the scene with a brusque line—“textbook domestic, innit?”—as the narrative shifts tone. Andrews was convicted of the businessman's murder and was ordered to serve at least 15 years in prison in 2001; the material records that she had denied murdering Tom Cressman because he would not marry her and refers to her as the then-34-year-old at the time of conviction.
Family reaction: private screening, tears and long-running concern
Tom Cressman’s brother, Rick Cressman, a business owner from Warwickshire, said watching the new drama brought him to tears more than 25 years after the killing. “By the time we got into the final episode, I was feeling very, very tearful, ” he said. He told of being given a private screening after expressing concern about the decision to commission a four-part fictionalised drama, and said protecting his brother’s memory and legacy had become increasingly important. “It is a problem to fictionalise a genuine living story we're living and breathing; our family's here and I've always tried to cope with a lot of the intrusions that we've had to cope with, ” he said. He added: “I can't have my brother's memory and legacy being besmirched by people just creating stuff. ” He also recalled facing up to an announcement in December of 2024 that a four-part fictionalised drama was to be made, and said another production is on the way that would be the 12th TV production about the case.
Critical split over tone, portrayal and emphasis on royalty
Critical reaction captured in the context ranges from pointed disapproval of the series’ tone to praise for the lead performance. One critic described the drama as a maddening concoction that lurches between royal soap, police procedural, coming-of-age period piece and domestic tragedy, and argued that the show’s interpretation of Sarah Ferguson repeatedly overwhelms the story of Andrews’s decline. At the same time, another headline singled out Mia McKenna-Bruce’s performance as a highlight. The drama’s mixture of glamorised period detail and grim criminal reality is the central source of the debate now surrounding jane andrews now.
