Olivia Colman, Claire Foy, and Anya Taylor-Joy bickered over who is the best 'queen' on Netflix in a star-studded Zoom pantomime
In the story of the first Christmas the three kings feature prominently, but who has ever heard of three queens during the festive season?
Well that's exactly what happened on Christmas Eve 2020, when three actresses who have played different "queens" on Netflix faced off.
To celebrate Christmas in a coronavirus-safe manner, the BBC commissioned a star-studded, Zoom-based pantomime — a farcical British comedy play — version of the classic fairytale, Cinderella.
The production featured many of the UK's most famous actors, including Olivia Colman, Anya Taylor-Joy, Claire Foy, Daniel Craig, David Walliams, David Tennant, and Helena Bonham-Carter.
Halfway through the hour-long show all was still well with terrible pantomime jokes flowing, cringeworthy celeb banter, and thousands of pounds were being raised for charity.
However, after a break to promote the show's charitable cause, Claire Foy appeared on screen to ask viewers to keep donating, and to restart the programme.
That's when things got heated.
"Thank you so much for your generosity and do keep giving if you can," Foy, who played a young Queen Elizabeth II in the first two series of Netflix's hit "The Crown," began.
"Meanwhile back in Fairyland, poor Cinderella," she continued, before being abruptly cut off by Colman, who was playing the key role of Cinderella's Fairy Godmother.
"Hey Foy, get out of it, you can't go around taking other people's roles!" — she yelled, while theatrically tapping her wand on the screen.
"Oh I see, but it was fine when you took over from me was it, ma'am?" — Foy retorted in faux outrage.
"Yeah, deal with it. I'm the Fairy Godmother, and I'm the Queen," Colman said, referencing her role as Queen Elizabeth II in the most recent two seasons of "The Crown."
At this point, Tom Hollander intervened, imploring his fellow actors to calm down: "Ladies, ladies, this is a charity pantomime, not a competition to find out who is the best queen on Netflix!"
As Hollander finished speaking, Taylor-Joy — who shot to fame as the lead role in 2020 smash hit "The Queen's Gambit" — unmuted herself and delivered the killer blow: "And come on, we all know who'd win that one. Checkmate."
Taylor-Joy then winked at the camera, sealing the argument once-and-for all.
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