‘The Royals’ review: All dressed up with nowhere to go

The ‘Royal falls for commoner’ trope is not new. In the Netflix show The Royals, creators Rangita Pritish Nandy and Ishita Pritish Nandy take this idea and hand it over to writers who squeeze every drop out of the cliche.

On paper, the idea of an heir to an aristocratic house in Rajasthan falling in love with a self-made CEO of a hospitality start-up could have been fun. Add stunning locales, a few clever casting choices and a whole lot of pomp and drama and conflicts and you have the basis for a romantic drama.

But that potential is not fully realised in The Royals. The eight-episode series is set in the fictitious Morpur, amidst the crumbling facades and fraying brocades of fading royalty.

Playboy and model Aviraaj “Fizzy” Singh (Ishaan Khatter) returns home for the reading of his father’s will. Yuvanath Singh (Milind Soman) – now resting in a garlanded frame (and seen in flashbacks) – is also the father of Digvijay “Diggy” (Vihaan Samat) and Divyaranjini “Jinnie” (Kavya Trehan).

The Morpur clan is, in fact, broke. Like her entitled children, the erstwhile queen Padmaja (Sakshi Tanwar) doesn’t quite know how to deal with Morpur’s dereliction. Grandmother Bhagyashree Devi (Zeenat Aman) is too pumped with intoxicants to care. Even Fizzy gifts...

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