Racy drama on Princess Margaret on screen soon

A British television channel said that it plans to screen what it calls a "factually accurate" television drama that depicts Queen Elizabeth II's younger sister, Princess Margaret, having sex and taking drugs.

Channel 4 described "The Queen's Sister" as "a witty and irreverent royal romp". One scene features the princess in a lesbian kiss, while another shows her smoking a "strange cigarette" at a party.

"I think some people will find it quite arresting and challenging," said Channel 4's director of television, Kevin Lygo. "It's factually accurate and it's a racy romp."

Arts-loving Margaret, who died in February 2002, added a dash of cosmopolitan glamour to the royal family's staid image.

Her life was overshadowed by her youthful romance with Royal Air Force Group Captain Peter Townsend, a divorced hero of the Battle of Britain.

At the time, it was considered unthinkable that the queen's sister should marry a divorced man, and in 1955 Margaret announced she would not wed Townsend.

Margaret went on to marry the Earl of Snowdon, but the couple divorced in 1978, making Margaret the first divorcee in the queen's immediate family.

Francis Hopkinson, Channel 4's senior commissioning editor for drama, said the programme "shows the excesses of hedonism" but "wasn't intended as an exposé".