One of the Best Parts of ‘My Lady Jane’ Is the Actor You Don’t See on Screen
Do you know what makes shows like Jane The Virgin and Never Have I Ever iconic? A lot of things, but definitely their narrator. And you can go ahead and pat the narrator of Prime Video’s newest series My Lady Jane for the show joining the ranks of these fine specimen.
The series, created by Gemma Burgess, has Emily Bader and Edward Bluemel in the lead, and their chemistry is going to make you fan yourself. They’re wonderfully supported by a cast that includes Anna Chancellor, Kate O’Flynn, Dominic Cooper, Rob Brydon, Abbie Hern, Isabella Brownson, Henry Ashton, Robyn Betteridge, and Jordan Peters.
My Lady Jane is hot, funny, feminist, and its soundtrack is quite a bop too (Read our review!). But there’s one person who deserves a huge credit for making Jane’s story appear even more entertaining: the narrator. But unlike Never Have I Ever, where we find out from the start that the narrator is John McEnroe, who adds a unique zing to the foibles of a teenager like Devi, we don’t quite find out right away who the narrator of My Lady Jane’s tale is.
And we need to, because he is our first contact with the story, as he narrates the teaser and trailer too!
Who is the narrator that makes My Lady Jane such a blast?
You can go ahead and thank English actor Oliver Chris for his narration of all eight episodes of My Lady Jane season 1.
You might know Chris from BBC’s The Office (2001) and Emma (2020) in which he played John Knightley, the brother of Johnny Flynn’s Mr. Knightley. More recently, he was seen in Foundation, where he played Sef Sermak, the Director of the Foundation on Terminus.
Interestingly, this is not even Chris’ first tryst with British royalty onscreen. He starred in Netflix’s The Crown season 5, in which he played James Colthurst, the doctor who Princess Diana is close with. In a 2017 TV movie about Prince Charles’ fictional ascension, called King Charles III, Oliver Chris played Prince William.
Now aren’t those the perfect credentials to narrate a series that is about British royalty? But his filmography aside, the actor’s voice elevates the clever, cheeky writing that’s the highlight of the series.
My Lady Jane is like a seven-course meal for the book girls who love romance and fantasy tropes, steamy chemistry between the leads, and a badass heroine they can root for. It takes a slice out of British royal history, the story of Lady Jane Grey who was known as the ‘Nine Day Queen’, spices it up with some fantasy elements like humans who can turn into animals, and gives the sad ending a fun little twist.
Let’s hope we get a My Lady Jane season 2, and Oliver Chris returns to narrate Jane and Guildford’s adventures in the British royal court!
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