Full trailer drops for The Crown Season 4

yeah that voice sounds nasal and creepy alright, and probably stank of halitosis

Excellent! Looks like that old cunt Thatcher and Princess Margaret's deaths are in there. Diana's children, divorce and death must be next season. Diana and Charles look entirely believable.

Really looking forward to this. As much as love Olivia Colman - she's badly cast as the Queen. She looks/sounds nothing like Elizabeth. Claire Foy was perfect casting for the younger Elizabeth.

Posting the trailer would be good OP. It looks so good. I have chills. It looks like Diana and Charles will be epic.

I did post it, r3. It's at the link. You just have to scroll down a little.

It's all good. I didn't see it, but I'm glad you posted it. I am so excited for this season. Last season was good, but this looks fantastic. She actress for Diana might be one of the best castings.

At first I thought that was supposed to be Fergie at the family gathering at Balmoral at :52 into it (at the right foregound), but I think that woman with the long red hair is instead playing Diana's sister Lady Jane Fellowes. Lady Jane married the queen's private secretary at the time, Sir Robin Fellowes, and Diana stayed with the two of them for her first visit Balmoral to meet the BRF since they got a grace-and-favor cottage on the estate.

Do many people still have that accent today? And what is it?

What we really want to know is if we get to see Josh O’Connor’s dong?

Is it me, or did the costumes look very cheap?

Just to tide you over in case The Crown doesn't deliver. He has such a nice dick.

[quote] Do many people still have that accent today?

No.

[quote] And what is it?

Pure pretentiousness.

[quote] Excellent! Looks like that old cunt Thatcher and Princess Margaret's deaths are in there.

This season goes from 1979-1990. The funeral depicted is very probably Lord Mountbatten's (he was killed by IRA terrorists when they bombed his boat in 1979).

Princess Margaret died in 2002; seasons 5 & 6 will feature Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret in her final years.

Margaret Thatcher died only back in 2013. The series is not going up to Thatcher's death: the showrunner Peter Morgan has promised it will not go even as far up as William and Kate's wedding in 2011.

He has said explicitly he does not want to show Kate, Meghan, or Prince Andrew's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein, so none of that is going to be depicted.

Another problem with the casting is that Elizabeth was always prettier and more beautiful than Margaret. Yet the two Margarets in this series have been prettier and better looking than the two Elizabeths.

[quote] Another problem with the casting is that Elizabeth was always prettier and more beautiful than Margaret.

Oh, good heavens no. The reverse is true.

The young Margaret (L) was always considered much prettier than Elizabeth (R).

Elizabeth and Margaret in the 1950s

[quote] As much as love Olivia Colman - she's badly cast as the Queen. She looks/sounds nothing like Elizabeth. Claire Foy was perfect casting for the younger Elizabeth.

I also found this to be true. Love Olivia. But surprisingly found her ill-suited for this role. Claire was fantastic.

Thanks OP for the trailer. Something to look forward to in a year that’s been.....challenging.

Yeah Margaret had softer features than her sister. Much prettier.

It looks like they will be focusing much less on Margaret and Philip, which is a good thing. Margaret had great episodes last season, but she wasn't very interesting after she divorced Snowdon; and I thought the episode that focused on Philip and the moon landing was the dullest episode all last season. I wanted an entire episode devoted instead to Anne.

I'm not sure if there will be much for Anne to do this season: my guess is that it will be primarily about Diana and Charles, and the Queen and Margaret thatcher. I wonder if they'll even show Andrew's marriage to Fergie.

I love Anne and the actress playing her.

Dickie dies!

Diana ascends!

Margaret begins her reign of terror!

The show finally has the perfect cast AND juicy content...I hope it doesn't fuck things up.

Olivia inherited the role after Clare had defined it, and in seasons in which the queen has settled into her position so they’re more about other people than Elizabeth.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore Clare’s performance.

I actually like Olivia Coleman's world weary, jaded and over it all take on the Queen. Makes her seem much more human

I was in London when Thatcher died. "Ding dong the witch is dead" was graffitied all over Westminster area...Lol

I thought there were some odd choices made in season 3. It was much slower-paced than the previous two. There was no mention whatsoever of Captain Phillips, nor of the attempt to kidnap Princess Anne, yet there was an entire episode about Charles going to Cardiff to learn Welsh? Why?

I think both Coleman and HBC are miscast. HBC is so miscast that when I saw her in this trailer, I forgot for a moment who she was supposed to be playing.

That said, it still looks fantastic and the Diana actress looks amazing.

Agreed R25. I also had to think to remember who HBC was supposed to be. Both of them are superb actresses but they are woefully miscast in their roles in The Crown. Part of it is Elizabeth and Margaret had stunning HUGE blue eyes and HBC and OC both have very, very brown eyes.

I didn't realise Margaret's health problems started while she was still middle-aged. Not surprising, I suppose, given what a heavy smoker and drinker she was.

The moment at 0:52 when everyone, including the corgi on the Queen's lap, turns their heads cracked me up for some reason.

I loved that trailer; I'm eager to see how they portray Diana. Until I watched the trailer, I forgot how fierce the Diana-mania was.

I agree that the Philip moon landing episode last season was boring and pointless. It's ridiculous that Princess Anne didn't get an episode devoted to her, given the interesting things that happened to her in the 70s.

If they aren't going to show Kate, that probably means the show will end around the year 2000.

If they are going to end it around 2000, then Season 4 is going too fast. They should have had it cover 1977-1984, ending with the birth of Harry and the true breakdown in the Charles/Diana marriage (according to Diana). There's plenty of juicy stuff to cover there. Then, the next season could cover 1985-1992, ending with the fire at Windsor and the real tabloid storm over the Windsor marriages. The final season could cover 1993-2000.

Though really, the show should end in 2002 with the deaths of Princess Margaret and the Queen Mum, and the 50th anniversary of Elizabeth's ascension to the throne. William and Kate didn't become an item until that same year, so the show could ignore that OR show just a glimpse of William and Kate (that famous fashion show where he first noticed her). providing a brief window into the future of the BRF.

r18 I still don't understand their thought process behind skipping over Anne kidnapping attempt. That's high drama that would have been a great way to show off her character and it fits into the time frame of last season. Feels like the showrunner is more concerned about kissing the Royal Family's ass than actually telling a compelling story. Started so strong, but last season was a slog.

This is r32 again. I realize that I actually don't know the purpose of The Crown. What is the story that the show is trying to tell? Can anyone help me understand because they aren't going for the easy layups so I'm trying to understand the purpose of this wonderful show?

I’m not convinced by the Diana actress. Her face is like a kewpie doll. Hoping her acting carries it.

[quote]r14 Oh, good heavens no. The reverse is true. The young Margaret (L) was always considered much prettier than Elizabeth (R).

I disagree. I think Elizabeth has always been more beautiful. I'd be confounded to hear it if the consensus was that Margaret was deemed prettier.

Margaret grew into her looks. She was not an attractive young woman until her 20s.

R31, I thought exactly the same thing. The Golden Jubilee is the natural endpoint, given that Margaret and the Queen Mum died shortly beforehand. Plus, although the producers have said Kate won't appear, they could reference the girl he's met at university in the final episode, which would give a sense of coming full-circle.

R33, the only reason I can see for skipping Anne's kidnapping is that they wanted to give Tobias Menzies another episode that centered on his character. Menzies is a very well known character actor, so he might have insisted on it in exchange for taking the part. The actress playing Anne, though fantastic in the role, is an unknown with little clout.

Margaret looks Mediterranean in those earlier photos. Was Cookie fooling around with the help?

Olivia Colman was terrible casting--they went for buzz over realism. Emily Watson would have been a much better choice. Also, Emily Watson looks like she could be Imelda Staunton's daughter, so the transition from Season 4 to 5 would have been seamless.

I don't know who would have been the right choice for middle-aged Margaret, but HBC was one of the worst choices they could have made. She was fine as the Queen Mum in the King's Speech, but she's no Margaret.

R10 - Thank you so very much for that. Thirst quenched.

Can’t wait! But that narrator’s voice was hilariously horrible.

Minnie Driver would have been an interesting older Margaret. She doesn't look a lot like her, but I think she could have captured the character well. Better than HBC.

I wonder if they’ll include the queen from YouTube who screamed when Di died. That was undoubtedly the scream heard around the world.

[quote] There was no mention whatsoever of Captain Phillips, nor of the attempt to kidnap Princess Anne, yet there was an entire episode about Charles going to Cardiff to learn Welsh? Why?

I have no explanation for why they left out Anne's marriage and kidnapping, but they did absolutely need to do an episode about the Investiture. it was the biggest royal event between the coronation and Charles's wedding to Diana in 1981 (it was bigger than either Anne's or Margaret's weddings in many ways, and received more international press). The angle they chose about Welsh calls for independence mirroring Charles's wishes from independence from his family was intelligent, and allowed them to show Charles's awkward character as a college student and the tension between himself and his mother.

That was probably the best episode last season (other than "Cri de Coeur," the Roddy Llewellyn episode).

[quote] What is the story that the show is trying to tell? Can anyone help me understand because they aren't going for the easy layups so I'm trying to understand the purpose of this wonderful show?

It's basic idea is to show what it's like to be the most famous person in the entire world and have an enormous national constitutional responsibility and a front-seat to the events of world history while simultaneously having no actual political power.

I liked the Welsh episode, and I agree that it was necessary. Of all the episodes last season, the most pointless one was definitely "Moondust."

I too didn't like "Moondust" or the one about the kids in the school. They were both a huge misses for me. Charles' episode was the best one of the season. If the show had started with this cast on S3, I think the show would have been a massive disappointment for Netflix. S1 & S2 stand strongly on their own and could have started this series. S3 was a mess of boredom and booze.

We also did not need an episode devoted to Margaret when we already covered her in S1 & S2. Elizabeth's children were already grown and warranted their own stories. Margaret's' life wasn't even that interesting by that point. She drank, fought, and fucked. Oh, poor dear.

The other issue with Moondust is that it's set in 1969, the same year as the investiture of Charles as Prince of Wales, so it doesn't even really show time progression. There is a huge time jump between Episode 9, set in 1972, and Episode 10, set in 1977. An Anne episode covering her marriage and attempted kidnapping (1973/74) would have made perfect sense.

I totally disagree about the Margaret episodes--she was the one who got the most tabloid action in the 1970s (in fact, the coverage of her relationship with Roddy Llewellyn set the standard for the tabloid saturation with the BRF in the 1980s), so she was important for covering the 70s. And they needed "Margaretology" to establish the marriage wasn't working (and also to show soem more interaction of the BRF with the White House--in fact, I was sorry Nixon did not make it into last season)

But I agree "Moondust" was boring. I agree it was probably in Menzies's contract that he got a big spotlight episode.

The other problem was the coup d'etat episode was also pretty boring, since it didn't ever come close to actually happening in real life, and had far too many scenes of Elizabeth relaxing in Kentucky with Porchey (her awesomely boring friend). But they needed to show Lord Mountbatten doing something last season to prepare the way for his death at the beginning of this season (which profoundly shook the royal family to its core, and was what prompted Charles to marry Diana in such a hurry), and the little scene at the end of it between Mountbatten and his sister Alice was one of the best things in the whole series.

Aberfan was a really heavy episode, but it's such a huge event from that time period that there's no way they could skip it.

"Moondust" had to be a sweetener for Menzies taking the part, one they were having a hard time casting (Hugh Laurie and Paul Bettany both turned it down). Otherwise, Phillip already had his spotlight episode with "Bubbikins," which is a much stronger episode overall.

If they really wanted to show Mountbatten doing something, they should have shown him encouraging Charles to fuck around, even keeping a slush fund to pay off lovers. All part of a plot to get Charles to wait until Mountbatten's own granddaughter, Amanda Knatchbull, was old enough to be marriageable age. That stuff really DID happen, and it had huge consequences on Charles' future.

Charles Dance as Mountbatten but didn't get enough to do. They should have saved him for the older Phillip in seasons 5 and 6.

[quote] If they really wanted to show Mountbatten doing something, they should have shown him encouraging Charles to fuck around,

They did. He was encouraging Charles to fuck around with Camilla until he found to his horror that Charles had fallen in love with her and the Queen mother considered her unsuitable.

Yes, but they could have done more with Mountbatten as Charles's mentor. He didn't just encourage Camilla, he encouraged other girlfriends as well. He's even the one who arranged for Charles to lose his virginity, and it really was all about strengthening the Mountbatten connection to the throne by having Charles marry Amanda. Having his nephew as the Queen's husband wasn't enough--he wanted his granddaughter to be Queen and his direct descendant to be heir to the throne. Perhaps that was too sensitive to show on TV, though.

OP that lavender color looks really good on Diana.

They had to do "Aberfan"--since the series is ultimately about Elizabeth II, she has said many times to her friends that the Aberfan tragedy (and her slow response to it) was one of the defining events of her life.

I don't think they really needed the first episode last season with the Queen and Philip finding out about Sir Anthony Blount being a Soviet spy, because they mostly covered the same ground Alan Bennett did in his well-known play "A Question of Attribution" (they even used Bennett's same idea about whether a misattributed Titian painting is what it claims to be or something else, and even used the same Titian painting in the royal collection). But they needed the first episode of the season to center somehow on the new actors playing the queen and Philip.

I also liked the "Dangling Man" episode about Charles's budding relationship with Camilla and the death of the Duke of Windsor. I confess i was really moved by the end of that episode thanks to Geraldine Chaplin's terrific performance--I never thought in my life I could feel sorry for the Duchess of Windsor. I also really liked that weird scene of Hirohito and his wife visiting the Windsors in Paris.

"Moondust" should have been replaced by the Anne episode, and "Coup" should have been replaced by an episode about the first Prince William, Charles' favorite cousin who died in a plane crash at an airshow in 1972. The crash would have been very dramatic, and they could have shown the effect the event had on Charles. They could even have brought in the fact that William's younger brother had to give up a promising architecture career to take up Royal duties, which would have resonated with Charles' own feelings of frustration and entrapment by Royal life. It which would have nicely bridged the Welsh episode and the first Camilla episode.

William of Gloucester himself had to give up an interesting career in the diplomatic service to take up Royal duties. He was also in love with a Jewish divorcee that his family didn't want him to marry. His issues would have served as really interesting foreshadowing for Charles' later problems. And, again, his history really happened as opposed to that "Coup" nonsense.

Basically, we all agree that Charles, Josh O'Connor, stole the show along with the actress playing Anne. Honestly, everyone else was a bore besides that Labour PM.

I recently re-watched the entire series, and I have to admit, while I adore Olivia Coleman, I also found her miscast. Her voice in that very first episode was positively jarring. Awful. Didn't like her interpretation at all. Claire Foy OTOH, was simply brilliant. I didn't like Vanessa Kirby's Margaret, but I adore Helena Bonham Carter.

[quote]Amanda Knatchbull

I certainly imagine she was in a hurry to get married.

I love HBC as Margaret: "BLINKIE, I'm SICK!" That was one of the funniest things of all in the whole show since it started.

I also like Olivia Colman as Elizabeth: whereas Claire Foy emphasized the young Elizabeth's curiosity and vulnerability, Colman emphasizes the middle-aged Elizabeth's coldness (especially to her son) and properness. But portrayals are very much in keeping with the real Elizabeth II.

The biggest problem I had with last season was the writing: they seemed to be in a revolving door, with too many old story ideas recycled from "the Queen" or previous seasons (Philip wants to modernize the BRF; Margaret feels unloved and neglected and without a role; the queen and Charles have to realize their constitutional role is too nothing, but at the same time the queen has to show her people she cares, which does not come naturally to her). Part of the reason for that is that not as much happened to the British royal family between Margaret's wedding and Charles's, but it is odd they avoided the kidnapping attempt since that was so interesting. I think the reason they avoided showing that and Anne's wedding was that they didn;t know how great the actress was going to be who plays Anne. I would also guess that since they have had a big wedding every season before (the queen's in season 1, Margaret's in season 2), and they knew they would have to have the biggest of all weddings for season 4, they avoided Anne's wedding to save money since depicting royal weddings are extremely expensive (they have to do CGI for the crowds outside and fill the cathedral with appropriately dressed extras).

This should be a much more exciting season. If Emma Corrin is any good at all, it should be fascinating, since we've never seen anything since "Charles and Diana: A Royal Wedding" (with DL favorite Olivia de Havilland as the Queen Mother!) that has dramatized onscreen the courtship and early married days of Charles and Diana that I can think of. And that was so hagiographic that it didn't show anything of what was really going on.

Charles will be much less sympathetic this season.

Josh O'Connor really did steal the show last season.

I can understand not having the budget for another big Royal wedding, but not showing Anne's kidnapping makes no sense at all.

Tom Byrne is playing Prince Andrew in Season 4. Do we know who is playing Fergie?

While awaiting the new season, is anyone put off by this trailer?

It’s dark. And the Archbishop narration....really necessary?

As someone else said, it’s straight out of a horror movie: The House on Hill Haunting.

That Archbishop's voice is creepy AF.

That's a recording of the actual archbishop at the 1981 wedding. Even then his voice seemed really ominous. He just spoke that way.

Clearly they want to up the drama quotient, which is why they're using that narration. It does make sense: Charles and Diana's marriage was incredibly harrowing until they decided to live apart (him in Highgrove and her in Kensington Palace). She was mentally ill, and he was unused to doing anything to really help anyone else since he had been surrounded in adult like with toadies and flatterers attending to his every whim. A woman with BPD and a man who is a total narcissist do not make for a happy marriage.

[quote] A woman with BPD and a man who is a total narcissist do not make for a happy marriage.

Ha. Switch the woman and man in that sentence and you’ve got a description of The Harkles.

That is a story in and of itself. An ongoing saga that is playing out currently. Surely there will be movies of the Harkles’ debacle....someday.

The ominous tone of the trailer would be fine almost any other year. But in 2020, would appreciate something SLIGHTLY less dark....

I read once that many successful relationships consist of a gardener (the tender) and the rose (the tended). And while it's possible to have a successful relationship with two gardeners, relationships with two roses never work out.

Charles and Diana were two roses in desperate search of a gardener. They tore at each other with all their thorns when the other refused to tend.

I think that in truly successful relationships r73, the roles of gardener and rose are freely exchanged as needed.

That would be ideal, but in my experience, there is usually one who tends more than the other.

Charles was looking for a woman who would cosset him and manage him the way that the Queen Mum did with George VI. Diana was clearly looking for an indulgent Daddy who would never abandon her like own father abandoned her emotionally after her parents' divorce.

Boy, were they both disappointed.

Goals: R74 ‘s experience.

The Windsor men are generally more attracted to tough-as-old-boots Camillas than insecure Dianas.

[quote] Charles was looking for a woman who would cosset him and manage him the way that the Queen Mum did with George VI.

Well, I doubt that was his actual model, because he was only three and a half when George VI died--I doubt he even really remembers his grandfather, or the relationship his grandfather had with the Queen Mother. But it is true he felt neglected by his own mother when he was growing up and really wanted someone to mother him, which is exactly what he got in Camilla.

When he married Diana, he was clearly mostly interested in her because she was from the right kind of aristocratic family his grandmother would approve of, and also because Diana had kept herself a virgin (which the Queen Mother and the court also insisted on back then). He was also enormously sexually attracted to her at first, if Diana's own words from the Andrew Morton book are any guide. But he really married her in desperation after his beloved Uncle Dickie (Lord Mountbatten) died--Charles had said he would marry by 30, but by 32 he was unmarried, and his parents were complaining to him about that--and his Uncle Dickie had told him he should marry an aristocratic virgin who would bear him healthy heirs. I think since Uncle Dickie did not have a happy marriage and was a great philanderer (as his own wife was), he did not stress to Charles that he needed to love his wife or remain faithful to her.

Charles did think he would have intellectual companionship from Diana if he trained her, which was somewhat insane, since she had not even finished a proper high school and had no interest in discussing ideas (she liked reading romantic novels by her stepgrandmother, Barbara Cartland). On their honeymoon Charles brought along the books of his mystic intellectual guru Laurens van der Post and asked Diana to read them with him so they could discuss van der Post's ideas at night--Diana said she had absolutely zero interest in them. I don't know if Charles still reads Van der Post, or if he ever got Camilla to read them with him (I would doubt it--I don't think she's much of a reader).

The sad thing is that Diana actually became later in the 1980s a devotee of New Age mysticism herself, and so by that time she and Charles would have had more to discuss--but by that point the marriage had broken down irrevocably.

R64, I hadn't really thought about the budget of filming a royal wedding. But they could have shown a brief scene where the Queen and Phillips were sitting late in the evening watching grainy TV footage of Anne and Phillips waving from the balcony, and commenting on what a day it was. Or even just referenced the fact that Anne was now married. It was odd that it wasn't mentioned at all.

I really liked the Labour PM, Harold Wilson’s meeting with the queen. The actor who played him does a lot of comedy roles and I thought he would be too lightweight but that scene was very moving.

"Kate, Meghan, or Prince Andrew's involvement with Jeffrey Epstein"

R12- What involvement did Markle and Kate have?

I was disappointed that last season didn't acknowledge the punk scene even in passing. 'God Save the Queen' was pretty scandalous at the time.

[quote] I was disappointed that last season didn't acknowledge the punk scene even in passing. 'God Save the Queen' was pretty scandalous at the time.

I was disappointed in last season full-stop. As another poster stated, if Netflix had rolled out Season 3 without Seasons 1 or 2 before it, I don’t believe it would have achieved much attention or accolades.

There seems to be some question of the stories they chose to portray in S3; as much of subjects which seemed less story-worthy seemed to get attention. Also, as another commentator stated, the writing seemed really poor in S3. At points, I found myself drifting during some episodes (like Philip’s “Moonshot”), whereas in S1 and S2 couldn’t seem to get enough of the series.

Am hopeful for Season 4. Both Charles and Diana may add something to the humdrum and dreary overtones of Olivia’s portrayal of Elizabeth. It will be interesting to see Elizabeth in Season 5: how she is portrayed and is perceived.

The trailer for S4 does appear foreboding. And as someone else noted, there’s been high drama in 2020. Some drama for S4 would be fine. But if it veers into heavy, oppressive drama, that may not go over well in this climate.

There is a scene at the end of the trailer where Charles looks like he is literally screaming at Diana. I can't wait. Agree, when they showed Margaret, it took me a few moments to register.

"Moondust" was very dull, but the fuller story behind Philip and his interest in space was a hell of a lot more interesting. He was apparently obsessed with the idea of UFOs and alien life. Radio 4 did a piece on it called "Britain's X-files" ages ago which included interviews with RAF officers who claim to have knowledge of Philip's attempts to speak to anyone in Britain who might have had an encounter. Been 15 years or so since I listened to it, but it made quite an impression at the time. Philip was a bit of a freak when it came to outer space.

More up-to-date on Philip's UFO obsession

One of the things that defined Diana was her style (which could be both iconic and horrifying). One thing I've noticed in promotion stills is that the wardrobe for "Diana" takes a lot of creative liberties in terms of colors and design. The show has faithfully reproduced items worn by Elizabeth II up to this point. Since Diana wore a lot of brand name designers I wonder if there are licensing issues at play.

Diana's 'style' wasn't up to much, really. Her charisma was the striking thing. It shone out across cultures then, and now, across time. The clothes, in truth, really weren't that great.

I would have liked Nixon to have appeared in series 3. Since we saw JFK and LBJ meet the royals, we should have seen him as well. Apparently he tried to set his daughter Tricia up with Prince Charles (and, as it happens, George W Bush).

Season 3 might've been dull because there wasnt much going on in 70s for the royals. They did some important bits and could've done more with Anne. Thatcher and Diana should make for interesting stories.

[quote] During the course of that research, Eade discovered not only that Prince Philip was a subscriber to the magazine Flying Saucer Review, but that he once sent his equerry, Sir Peter Horsley, “to meet an extraterrestrial humanoid at a house in Ealing.”

If I were an extraterrestrial humanoid, I'd be miffed if Prince Philip didn't even bother to meet me in person.

Ealing is a dump. Why would an alien choose to live there?

The replica of the Spencer tiara is completely out of proportion, as are most of the replica jewels on this show. It’s not that big, and in fact due to the sheer size of Diana’s gown and veil, and Diana’s height, it actually looked quite modest on her that day.

[quote] Season 3 might've been dull because there wasnt much going on in 70s for the royals.

There was far more than they portrayed.

As others said, Anne (wedding/kidnapping/relationships/etc.), “God Save the Queen”, Nixon are just a few MORE interesting plot lines.

Heck, even spicing up ‘ole Philip’s interest in UFOs for that draining and droning moon episode might have helped.

Add that to a much different Elizabeth and the S3 was left wanting. Especially following seasons 1 and 2.

My dad was disappointed that series three didn't feature England winning the World Cup (even though we're Scottish). I don't know how much mileage they could have got out of that, but he maintains they could have done something with it.

[quote] My dad was disappointed that series three didn't feature England winning the World Cup (even though we're Scottish). I don't know how much mileage they could have got out of that, but he maintains they could have done something with it.

You should show him the "Mad Men" episode about that.

R96 Is it with Lane?

[quote] One of the things that defined Diana was her style (which could be both iconic and horrifying). One thing I've noticed in promotion stills is that the wardrobe for "Diana" takes a lot of creative liberties in terms of colors and design. The show has faithfully reproduced items worn by Elizabeth II up to this point. Since Diana wore a lot of brand name designers I wonder if there are licensing issues at play.

They couldn't even duplicate her wedding dress because it is still licensed to the owners.

r97, yes. It's the fifth episode of the fifth season, and it's called "Signal 30."

The whole Charles and Diana thing was a disaster from day one. Pity he wasn't allowed to marry Camilla because of the archaic standards of the time. She was considered and unsuitable match back when they were dating in the Seventies.

According to wikipedia, this is the actress who will play Sarah Ferguson: Jessica Aquilina.

There's no word whether her part will be big or if she'll just be seen fleetingly, like Andrew and Edward were last season. My suspicion is the latter, or we would have heard more about her being cast.

R78 actually Camilla is an avid reader and is patron of such.

Will they show Mountbatten molesting young boys?

I've enjoyed The Crown.

Count me in as another who was disappointed overall with season 3, though it did have some great episodes still, and the actors playing Charles and Anne were wonderful. I actually prefer Menzies as Philip as well. Probably because I'd rather fuck him than Matt Smith. But anyway...

I was so reluctant to watch this show at all, and only did by accident as my mother was watching it when I was visiting last Christmas. I was expecting to hate it but got hooked into it and watched the first two seasons in probably three days. Then watching the third season was just not the same. I love Coleman and HBC, but didn't love them as much in these roles and kinda wondered if it would've been possible to keep Foy and Kirby on for one more seasons, aged up slightly? I dunno, it just felt like the actors changed too soon.

The Moonshot episode was AWFUL for a show that is generally so good, I haven't felt the need to prop my eyes open quite like that for a long time. I also wasn't that impressed with the last episode being all about Margaret again. I loved seeing Princess Alice, but I wish they'd gone into her life even more, she was a fascinating woman - worth more than all the other royals put together.

As everyone else has said, why not the kidnapping attempt on Anne and Mark Phillips? Great drama there! Would've been one of the most interesting things to happen during season 3. Also, if season 4 is going to start around the time of Mountbatten dying, it's a real pity the show put no real effort during season 3 to show The Troubles more. That's kinda important.

Anyway, having said this, I'm pretty keen for the next season, it should be much more interesting just based on the whole Charles/Diana thing alone.

When do we get to see the fire, I’m excited for that.

But she had been anointed with holy oils!!!

[quote]I love Coleman and HBC, but didn't love them as much in these roles and kinda wondered if it would've been possible to keep Foy and Kirby on for one more seasons, aged up slightly?

I definitely think they could have. HBC was way too old to be playing Margaret in the 60s when she was still relatively young and hip.

Since this season mostly took place between '65 and '72 (there's only one episode set in '77), they could have easily ended Season 4 in '72 and kept Smith, Kirby, and Foy. Season 4 could have started in 77 with Imelda Staunton playing Elizabeth. She'd have been about 10 years older than the character, but they could have made it work with lighting and costuming.

In 1972, Elizabeth was 46. Claire Foy is 36. Margaret was 42. Vanessa Kirby is 32. Phillip was 50. Matt Smith is 37, the biggest stretch of the bunch. But aging 10-12 years is certainly not outside the realm of possibility. That's what makeup and costuming are for, and a decade isn't so much of a cheat that the aging makeup would have looked unnatural.

Good points R108 & R109.

Think keeping Clair and the S1/S2 team for S3 would have been the wiser move.

Olivia and HBC just did not seem to cut it. But without them, we wouldn’t have realised how well the early team played their roles.

And to add to others’ thoughts, I prefer Menzies as Philip to Matt Smith as well....so it’s not just about having an older team for S3. As much as I like Olivia, Elizabeth does not seem to be a role for her. And as others have stated, HBC does not meld into Margaret. HBC is too much of herself in this role.

HBC looks more like Margaret than Kirby did

I disagree r111 i think Kirby was a better Margaret overall. Natural likeness incl.

LOL, Margaret never looked like Kirby

Margaret in her 20s could be very pretty so Kirby worked. Also Kirby is less well known. With HBC, she is too good looking and too distinctive to play the older, frumpier Margaret. Olivia Coleman was good as the dowdy, mature queen who had finally settled into her role.

Menzies just doesn't work for me as Prince Philip. I much preferred Matt Smith. Didn't like Vanessa Kirby as Margaret, Carter was very good because she is always very good, but she was too old for Margaret. Olivia Coleman was not a good ER2. Prince Charles and Princess Anne were the standouts in Season 3. Loved them.

As for Diana, and Charles, they were totally incompatible from the git. She was extremely young for her age with ridiculous expectations of marrying a Prince, particularly Charles, who she had been crushing on since she was a young adolescent. In fact her emotional age had to have been about 13. Charles was a wreck. Constantly trying to live up to his parents expectations, conscious of his DUTY as Heir, and emotionally torn because he truly did love Camilla, who seemed to have spurned him eventually, but felt like he had to do what was demanded of him.

Dick Mountbatten was a terrible role model. Dickie and a had what could be politely called an open marriage. Both hardly passed a year of their entire married life without numerous affairs. While I think Charles was wrong to have cheated on Diana, I also think without Camilla around, it would have still be a complete disaster with her bulimia, and crying jags and all the rest. He was simply not equipped emotionally to dealing with someone like her. And yes, IMO she was unstable.

the trailer looks terrifying

The actress playing Diana, while lovely, doesn't capture the magic that Diana had. But then, nobody could. Diana completely pulled focus from whatever else was going on. You couldn't help but watch her. She really had the elusive "It" factor.

I know. Mary!

Yes, they've never successfully cast Diana, even when using movie stars like Naomi Watts. The girl in the trailer evokes the youthful Diana--that hunted deer look--so she will suffice.

Was that Naomi Watts movie any good? I'm running out of things to watch, and maybe I'll give it a try.

R117, I do know what you mean. One of the things that The Queen did so well was that it didn't show Diana (except for a couple of real life clips in the beginning) and yet you felt her strong presence throughout the entire movie.

R119, I sorta watched it years ago. From what I saw it was not a good movie at all.

R119, I've never seen the Naomi Watts film, but the reviews were BRUTAL. Might be worth checking out for the "so bad it's good" factor, actually!

[quote] Was that Naomi Watts movie any good? I'm running out of things to watch, and maybe I'll give it a try.

The critics panned it as mentioned above.

But I saw it recently and did not think it that bad.

As others have noted, Diana seems to be difficult to portray.

She was an unusual mix: innocence matched with charisma mixed with volubility and unpredictability.

The upcoming Crown actress does have that “stunned” look about her, but it will be interesting to see how she fares in capturing a complex individual.

Glad to see the actress is holding her head on the side like Diana used to. I remember being a little kid and asking my mother: "Why does that woman hold her head like that?" (Mum's theory: "she's shy".)

Diana is so difficult to portray because it is all so fresh to us. We have the image that is believed, true or not. and any actress will have a hard time.

"Fresh?" She's been dead for almost a quarter of a century.

Sweetie, tell that to the old queens here about a quarter of a century.

True, r126. I forgot that DL can be a weird time warp. The 1990s are still recent for some here.

[quote] The actress playing Diana, while lovely, doesn't capture the magic that Diana had.

There's absolutely no way you can possibly tell yet from just the released stills and the trailer. We've yet to hear Emma Corrin even deliver a single word (much less a line) as Diana yet--she doesn't even speak in the trailer.

Clearly you've entirely prejudged her performance before you've even seen it.

[quote] When do we get to see the fire, I’m excited for that.

Season 5. This season (Season 4) only goes up to 1990.

I thought Naomi Watts did a good job as Diana. And the movie overall was good. Focuses on her relationship with Hasnat Khan.

"Diana" pretty much killed off Naomi Watts's career, which is too bad because she's a genuinely good actress.

I watched it on an airplane flight, right after watching the Nicole Kidman as Princess Grace movie. Now that one was truly bad. You never forgot that you were watching Nicole Kidman. Plus it was a terrible, stupid story.

The Naomi Watts Diana was better than expected (but again, I was watching it on an airplane). It was panned because she was “too old, too short” but I thought she captured the body language very well, that chin down looking up through her bangs look.

That Lifetime movie about Megz and Haz was truly awful but I still watched it. The actors looked a lot like the real versions and esp for Megz the voice was spot on. Years ago the Charles and Diana movie with Catherine Oxenberg was a real shitfest.

[quote] Megz and Haz

Really interesting interview for Town & Country with Josh O'Connor, Emma Corrin, and Emerald Fennell abou the coming season.

And an accompanying photoshoot where they wear some of the strangest, most unflattering, and most expensive clothes I have seen in a long time. In some of them O'Connor is wearing a keychain with keys on them on his jacket lapel, and they claim that it sells for thousands of dollars. What would you spend so much for that when you could make your own in fifteen minutes for under $20? I will never understand high fashion.

WHY have they not included Koo Stark?

Koo Stark is having a retrospective of work she has yet to do.

I've never heard of anyone being named Emerald before.

R128 Isn’t there a famous chef from NOLA named that?

Seasons 1 and 2 were always going to be better because the change from princess to queen is more interesting. She had to grieve her father, adjust to the ridiculous life of a monarch, deal with changes in her marriage and her relationship with her mother and sister (and their perspectives as well). Regardless of the world events, the dynamics and drama are more interesting.

In season 3 the Queen's the "settled sovereign", and so anything focused on her will be boring, regardless of the actor. Middle-aged marriages are boring. She's been in the job for years so that's boring. The Queen Mother is a boring old woman. Princess Margaret always seemed more pathetic than glamorous. There's virtually nothing to work with.

You can't really create a strong character drama when most of the characters - especially the lead - are flat out boring.

That's why the most interesting parts of Season 3 focused on the younger generation, in particular, Charles. Not including more about Anne was a real misstep since her dramas were far more watchable than Phillip angsting over the bloody moon landing.

I also thought Olivia Colman was miscast until the scene where she tells Charles off while preparing for bed.

“Let me let you in on a little secret. No one wants to hear it.”

Olivia Colman stole G’s Oscar. She can go cunt herself.

[quote] I've never heard of anyone being named Emerald before.

"Esmerelda" is the Spanish and Purtuguese word for emerald, and it's more frequently a name than "Emerald" is.

Lady Emerald Cunard was a famous London society hostess on the first half of the 20th century. She was close friends with Wallis Simpson.

Emerald wasn't her given name, though. She named herself that. She was born Maud Alice Burke.

I am sorry, but for me, Diana in real life was just an attractive celebrity who overshared, and enjoyed her time in the spotlight as much as she seemed to be "frightened" by it. She didn't mind the attention, but she did want to control it. I give her credit for giving some meaning to her life and finding some purpose where she could use that celebrity to do good. But I never regarded her as this once in a lifetime awesome, charismatic, great beauty, or even close. She was a very striking, very attractive woman. She had access to the best fashion advice and the best personal trainers nutritionists, etc. and lots of advice on how to present. The 18 yr. old "Shy Di" was left behind soon after her wedding. An very upper class member of British society, etc.who as a very young girl dreamed of marrying a Prince and living in a castle. Her aspirations brought her to the doorstep of Buckingham Palace. But her Disnified version of Royal Life clashed with reality.

Does it matter if it's her given name or she chose it herself? The point is, a woman named Emerald (for which there is indeed precedent) should hardly be a problem in an age when people are naming their children things like Apple and Blue Ivy and Pilot Inspektor and Jermajesty.

It's not a problem, it's just that Emerald as a nickname is a bit different from Emerald as a legal, given name. It's an unusual name either way. Which is odd, since nobody wonders at someone named Ruby.

Or wonders at Pearl, for that matter.

But it's the same with flowers. Rose and Violet are still pretty common names, but we would think it unusual if a girl were named Cornflower or Phlox.

I think for a time MArgaret foolishly felt competitive with Elizabeth Taylor. Maybe competitive isn't the right word, but they definitely had a rivalry. You could see it in her style, her looks, and of course her jet setting lifestyle which was a pretty pointless existence. This season we'll see the deterioration of Margaret's health, her cancer diagnosis, etc. My God. Watching the trailer, this Margaret Thatcher looks like a veritable monster....hateful old bitch.

Princess Margaret never had cancer.

[quote] I think for a time MArgaret foolishly felt competitive with Elizabeth Taylor. Maybe competitive isn't the right word, but they definitely had a rivalry. You could see it in her style, her looks, and of course her jet setting lifestyle which was a pretty pointless existence.

Elizabeth Taylor loved jewels, and her all-time favorite she owned was the Krupp Diamond, which Richard Burton had given her as an engagement ring and which she wore all the time. She wore it to a party and overheard Princess Margaret bitchily tell someone else the diamond was "vulgar," so when Taylor and Margaret started conversing and Margaret mentioned the ring, Taylor slipped it off and offered it to the Princess and said innocently, "Why don't you try it on?" Margaret did so, and was admiring it on her finger, and Taylor then said, "Not so vulgar now, is it?"

Margaret was pretty much a bitch her entire, but as has often been said, most of her friends actually enjoyed that about her because royal protocol meant she had to be the first one to leave a party, and after she left all her friends had great fun talking about how awful she had just been.

Margaret's big problem was that her whole purpose in life was finished at 18 when Elizabeth gave birth to Charles. She might have found contentment with Peter Townsend, but the family forbade that, and with no education, no career, and no happy marriage, she was left vulnerable to an opportunistic bastard like Tony Armstrong-Jones. He treated all of the women in his life like shit (due to seething mother issues), and Margaret's position as a princess did not protect her from his cruelty or his infidelity. Margaret was by no means a perfect person; she could, in fact, be a cold, snotty bitch. But in the grand scheme of things, she was more sinned against than sinning.

Margaret Rose was a cunt, but she couldn't outcunt my friend Julie.

Margaret, Harry and Andrew are excellent examples of why there needs to be some kind of plan in place for the spares. They all become damaged in one way or another, not to mention extremely annoying and petulant, because they have no real purpose. There should be some kind of education or profession or something.

'Then, the next season could cover 1985-1992, ending with the fire at Windsor and the real tabloid storm over the Windsor marriages. The final season could cover 1993-2000.'

There aren't going to be six seasons, you spaz.

Emma Corrin is beautiful but not 5ft 10, and unfortunately she is dating Harry Styles. Oliva Colman is hugely overcast in UK dramas. Far too familar a face and looks nothing like Elizabeth - she has brown for a start, not blue. Clare Foy was a perfect choice.

Brown eyes not blue

Margaret had to have part of a lung removed, was that from COPD or cancer?

Margaret had part of her left lung removed because of a non-cancerous nodule. She continued to smoke.

[QUOTE] She continued to smoke.

because she was a cunt

A "non cancerous nodule" doesn't require the removal of a lung. Damaged lungs, cancerous lungs yes, nodules, no. I have COPD. I have nodules. Non cancerous nodules. I have scarring. But I have two functioning lungs...at the moment. I've read up on everything lung related. I think Margaret had cancer but the word was never used.

She allegedly had a benign tumor. She lived for nearly 20 years afterwards, and still smoked.

Allegedly, when she met Bob Guccioni in New York he was wearing a huge gold phallus necklace. Margaret leaned in to inspect and admire and demanded, "My dear, whatever did you do to deserve THIS?"

[quote]There aren't going to be six seasons, you spaz.

[quote]The Crown Will Return for a 6th Season

I agree that in a world where there is a 99% chance the heir will make it to adulthood and reproduce, that family needs to have a plan in place for the spare. I hope William and Kate encourage Charlotte and Louis to get an education and take up some kind of meaningful work. It will hopefully keep this whole sad cycle from repeating itself yet again in 25 years.

For me, this series won’t end until I see a horse drawn carriage carrying a crystal coffin (think Evita) with Imelda Staunton, or her lifeless body double, drawn through the streets of London while adoring heart broken crowds shout “Elizavita!” in mourning and hysterical sorrow with the family slowly meandering behind. By extending it back to season six, I hope they get the timing right, or at least film it for the tacking on after it happens and then closing the whole series with a glimpse of the coronation of Charles, William or baby Archie, who ever it might be. It is after all called the Crown and needs to be bookended with the transfer of power or the whole series will be meaningless.

[quote] the whole series will be meaningless

It's about a royal family and is being created in the twenty-first century.

Of course it's meaningless.

[quote] She might have found contentment with Peter Townsend, but the family forbade that, and with no education, no career, and no happy marriage, she was left vulnerable to an opportunistic bastard like Tony Armstrong-Jones.

"The Crown" claimed that her sister and mother forbade the marriage for dramatic purposes, but documents from the time now reveal that wasn;t the case--the queen and the PM actually drew up plans to let him marry him if she liked, and would have allowed her to keep her title and her money and stay in the country:

[quote] Papers released in 2004 to the National Archives show that in 1955 the Queen and the new Prime Minister Sir Anthony Eden (who had been divorced and remarried himself) drew up a plan to amend the Royal Marriages Act, under which Princess Margaret would have been able to marry Townsend by removing Margaret and any children from the marriage out of the line of succession, and thus the Queen's permission would no longer be necessary. [bold]Margaret would be allowed to keep her royal title and her civil list allowance, stay in the country and even continue with her public duties.[/bold] Eden summed up the Queen's attitude in a letter on the subject to the Commonwealth prime ministers "Her Majesty would not wish to stand in the way of her sister's happiness." Eden himself was very sympathetic; "Exclusion from the Succession would not entail any other change in Princess Margaret's position as a member of the Royal Family," he wrote. The final draft of this proposal was produced on 28 October 1955.

So the idea that her family prevented her from marrying him was a myth. Her mother certainly did not want her to marry Townsend, but her mother would not have shunned her the way the family shunned the Duke of Windsor after he abdicated. Margaret made the decision in the end by herself

She almost certainly would not have been happy with Townsend. She was obsessed with her father, and her affair with Townsend was likely because he was her father's equerry while king: he was pretty much a father substitute for her when George VI died.

Margaret was raised by her parents to do nothing but marry well, and when she didn't want to marry any of the other European princes or kings (there weren't many left by the time she came of age in any case), that left her to do what her aunt Mary, the Princess Royal, did, and marry a wealthy British aristocrat. But that would have meant caring for a large estate and living most of the time in the country, and that was exactly what Margaret didn't want. The problem was there was practically no one Margaret could marry who would make her happy: she was excessively spoiled and longer for glamour and excitement and attention, and so she married someone who was hip and exciting, but who was as selfish and self-obsessed as she was.

[quote] For me, this series won’t end until I see a horse drawn carriage carrying a crystal coffin (think Evita) with Imelda Staunton, or her lifeless body double, drawn through the streets of London while adoring heart broken crowds shout “Elizavita!” in mourning and hysterical sorrow with the family slowly meandering behind. By extending it back to season six, I hope they get the timing right, or at least film it for the tacking on after it happens and then closing the whole series with a glimpse of the coronation of Charles, William or baby Archie, who ever it might be. It is after all called the Crown and needs to be bookended with the transfer of power or the whole series will be meaningless.

Peter Morgan has been quite clear the show won't do that. it almost certainly will not go beyond the Queen's Golden jubilee in 2003. He has said categorically and repeatedly that it will not go up to the era of Kate Middleton and Meghan--that is just off the table.

Short of a terrorist attack on Anmer Hall, Archie is never going to be king. He still has his three Cambridge cousins who are firmly ahead of him in the line of succession, and they will remain so for their entire lives.

Even if somehow William were ever to refuse the throne for himself, he still could not prevent his children from remaining in the line of succession right behind him, even if he wanted to do so.

R171 He said there would be six seasons. then he said there would not be six seasons. Now there are six seasons.

Morgan would do well to end the series at the Golden Jubilee. It neatly sidesteps having to deal with a lot of the current messiness in the royal family.

R169 is Sue Townsend 😉.

And I agree.

Actually r169 is an eldergay living in Miami.

But I agree with me too.

The series will end either with the Golden Jubilee (in 2003) or with Charles's marriage to Camilla (in 2005). Either place would be the natural place to end it.

I'm pretty sure Margaret would have stopped smoking had the problem been malignant cancer. She had the operation when her children were in their early 20s--she would have wanted to live still for them.

Charles and Camilla were a public couple by the Jubilee. The Queen actually invited her to the ceremony. That's enough of a signal of what's to come for the relationship, and of course we all know how it turns out anyway. If Morgan is serious about not showing Kate, he'll need to end it in Summer 2002 when the Golden Jubilee celebrations took place. Kate and William were just becoming an item then, and she certainly didn't attend the Jubilee as a guest of the Crown.

Series Six will include Di's death and perhaps Wills meeting boring Kate Middleton.

Di's death has been covered in 'The Queen' and I'm not sure what's to be gained by redoing it.

The series would have been much better if they'd not decided to focus on the queen because even though she's met everyone there is to meet and has had a front row seat of world events, she just seems completely boring.

Instead of focusing on her, they should have gone backwards and really looked at the drama of the abdication - say 1930s to 1950s . The early years of Elizabeth's reign are interesting -a young woman thrust into palace intrigue - but once she's settled in, it's snooze-worthy.

I would think Diana's death will be near the end of season 5.

Theres nothing to stop him including teenage Kate and Wills meeting at St Andrews and maybe Harry cheating in his exams. He just won't go into their late 20s/early 30s with their marriages.

I'll add to ^ that I think The Queen is a really excellent movie too, and I just don't know that they'll be able to do that storyline in The Crown again without it just looking like a poor reproduction.

Whoops, I meant I'll add to R181, didn't see the other posts come in before I pressed post myself.

The Queen came out in 2006 and the majority of Netflix's audience won't have seen it or will have forgotten it.

[quote] Even if somehow William were ever to refuse the throne for himself, he still could not prevent his children from remaining in the line of succession right behind him, even if he wanted to do so.

Not true. The only way to avoid the Crown if you’re next in line is to die before you inherit or abdicate as monarch. In that instance you can do so as monarch and for your heirs and successors. Edward VIII did it. So did Nicholas Romanov. For Edward VII the day after he signed his instruments of abdication Parliament passed an act with that respect, so it’s legal and enforceable.

r170 why would she have had to stay at the estate? They have other people that run things she could have stayed in London and her husband can visit. I'm sure royals perfected the part of living apart. She was just a bitch that no one wanted to waste their energy or money on.

[quote] Series Six will include Di's death and perhaps Wills meeting boring Kate Middleton.

He has said repeatedly he's never going to show Kate or Meghan in the series.

Great scene spoilers in the article. Looks like some awesome stuff coming up.

Spitting Image is doing Meghan and Harry and it's hilarious.

[quote] Theres nothing to stop him including teenage Kate and Wills meeting at St Andrews

Other than the fact he's said flat-out he will not show Kate.

I don't know why you have so much trouble accepting this.

He said flat out that he wasn't going past season five either. Why you think he won't show young Kate and Wills I have no clue. Are you one of those Klan Grannies who think the silly little bitch is sacred or something? It would be great if they showed Kate and her social climbing harridan of a mother forcing her to apply to St Andrews when she wanted to go to Durham, so that she could pursue a prince.

Maybe they'll show Kate in her gap year, which she spent working on a yacht in the Solent and having trysts with rich older men. A little bit of iconoclasm wouldn't go amiss there.

What about Meghan's grift r193?

[quote] He said flat out that he wasn't going past season five either.

Because Netflix wasn't going to give him the money to make a sixth season, and then they changed their minds.

[quote] Why you think he won't show young Kate and Wills I have no clue. Are you one of those Klan Grannies

Oh, I see who I'm dealing with now.

BLOCKED.

I don't see the harm in showing Kate and William, feels like an appropriate ending since Kate appears to be in this for the long run. I'm just not sure how well done a modern season will be, even if the 2000s were at least 10 years ago.

Because he DOESN'T WANT TO SHOW KATE AND MEGHAN. He has made that ABUNDANTLY clear.

Jesus Christ!

The obvious ending will be the deaths of Margaret and the QM.

BLUNDER!

R190 can you copy paste the article?

Sheesh, bit over the top with the horror-movie vibe. These actresses playing Diana always fall short looks-wise; plus they look too obvious doing Diana's upward gaze. Oh well, I'll watch.

R200

Emma Corrin on playing Diana in The Crown: 'I was told my life would change as much as hers did'

As she takes on the series' most coveted role, the 24-year-old actress discusses parallels with her own life and dealing with overnight fame

There had been other intense scenes and other memorable costumes, but when Emma Corrin first walked out in a recreation of the romantic wedding dress worn by Diana, Princess of Wales, the whole cast and crew of The Crown fell silent, as if they were witnessing a reincarnation.

When they started to speak, it was in whispers. ‘It was incredible because of the significance of what I was wearing,’ Corrin recalls, ‘but the effect it had on everyone in the room was quite terrifying. There was a reverence.’

The dress had been inspired by the iconic original design, conceived by David and Elizabeth Emanuel for the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer in 1981.

It was so massive that 10 people were needed to help the young actor into it for the wedding scene in the keenly awaited fourth series of Netflix’s drama. We sense the weight of expectation as Diana, seen from behind, advances slowly in her miles of satin towards an uncertain future.

The actress playing Diana was just a year old when Diana died.

The role is the most coveted and demanding of the entire £100 million television production, except that of the Queen – first played by the crystalline Claire Foy and now by Olivia Colman. It’s about to skyrocket the 24-year-old unknown actor from obscurity to life-changing celebrity, and there is no way of telling how it will be. ‘I’ve heard it said that you stop growing from the age you get famous,’ she says warily.

So far, Corrin is famous for being nearly famous. Ahead of the premiere next month, interest in her is feverish. As soon as the cast was announced in March last year, the paparazzi started to pursue her around London – an unpleasant echo of Diana’s treatment.

In a fashion anointing, she wears a plunging cobalt-blue gown by Oscar de la Renta on the cover of this month’s British Vogue, and she has a team to steer her through the rapids of oncoming fame. Her excitement is overlaid with caution. ‘It’s a lot of new experiences in a short amount of time. You have to be very good at setting boundaries for yourself, so you’re not taken advantage of.’

Having feasted on all 10 episodes, I can say that Corrin is as convincing a Diana as another human being could be. It’s not just a matter of the sidelong look or the voice or the glamour, but the dramatic truth of a divided personality that she gets so well. On their 1983 tour of Australia, where Diana is mobbed by adoring crowds, she confronts Charles with his neglect of her and his lingering attachment to Camilla.

Corrin captures exactly the trademark vulnerability and steel. ‘Where do I fit in?’ she demands. ‘You can’t leave her alone.’ To those of us who lived through the crowded Diana years, when almost every day’s press traded on her loveliness and her pain, it is like being confronted with the late Princess’s living embodiment. Shivery stuff.

‘As well as having the innocence and beauty of a young Diana,’ said the series’ creator Peter Morgan, when he announced the cast in April, ‘she also has, in abundance, the range and complexity to play an extraordinary woman who went from anonymous teenager to the most iconic woman of her generation.’ It was no hype.

‘She’s a total natural on set,’ says her dialect coach William Conacher. ‘Sometimes it was hard to believe she hasn’t been acting for the camera for decades. One of the first things Emma told me was that her mother is very like Diana. So much so that after Diana’s death, people used to do a double-take when they saw her. It’s in the blood. Emma was made to play Diana.’

The Crown has been with us now since 2016, an addictive soap opera that opened with Princess Elizabeth’s wedding to Prince Philip in 1947. Series four covers the turbulent decade from 1979 when Margaret Thatcher (a brilliant Gillian Anderson) reaches Number 10. Lord Mountbatten, the Queen’s cousin, is murdered on his boat by the IRA, Princess Anne’s marriage collapses, Michael Fagan breaks into Buckingham Palace and sits on the Queen’s bed – and a shy, upper-class girl of 19, a virginal kindergarten teacher, appears from nowhere as the answer to the 33-year-old Prince of Wales’s urgent marriage problem.

We were all – press and public, Church and state – taken in by the superficial magic of the Charles and Diana story, despite the almost perfunctory nature of their courtship. We colluded in the fairy tale. The country was in a state of political and social unrest, unemployment was high.

A royal romance to cheer and to distract was exactly what was needed and newspapers spared no expense in covering it. I was one of a small detachment of journalists sent to Gibraltar to cover the first leg of the royal honeymoon in August 1981. We had no suspicion that the couple on the deck of the Royal Yacht Britannia, looking carefree, were already heading for the marital rocks. Girlish in a flowersprigged dress, she looked far too young to be embarking on this voyage, but we assumed that the man at her side, almost 13 years her senior, would be her protector.

I don’t think it was intentionally an arranged marriage,’ says Corrin. ‘That sounds too calculated. But through expectation, tradition and a need for Prince Charles to get married to the “right” person, she came along and was, yeah, pretty perfect.’

In The Crown, Diana discovers before the wedding that Charles is still in love with Camilla Parker Bowles and tries to call the Queen to say the marriage cannot go ahead. The range of panic, disbelief and suppressed anger that Corrin lays bare is startling. ‘When I read Peter’s script,’ she says, ‘I wanted to shout, “Why aren’t you leaving? Why don’t you go? Why don’t you get out?”’

We are in a photographic studio near Earl’s Court, just a stone’s throw from Lady Diana Spencer’s old flat. Though Corrin says doing publicity makes her nervous, she has modelled for our cover shoot with professional aplomb and now appears relaxed in jeans and an enveloping JW Anderson top. Her grey-green eyes are steady and her features – rounder and more classically symmetrical than Diana’s – are composed. There is nothing particularly Diana-ish about her, except her height, but when she demonstrates her ‘hook word’ for catching Diana’s light, girlish voice – ‘Awright, awright’ – there’s a jolt of recognition. That tinselly final consonant is uncanny.

‘Diana’s accent was not especially remarkable,’ says Conacher. ‘Her intonation is the thing an actor can hang their vocal hat on. She spoke with a minor key phrase ending much of the time, something that came from lack of confidence, I think, in younger life and a tool she used in later life to reinforce empathy.’

Corrin’s rightness for the part was notched up in tiny increments over many months. In the summer of 2018, she had just left Cam - bridge University and was ‘auditioning relentlessly’ while trying to earn some money. She’d had two small television roles – in the US drama Pennyworth and an episode of Grantchester – and had a small part in the film Misbehaviour, about a group of 1970s feminists who disrupt the Miss World contest.

She was working in a start-up, packaging lingerie, when her agent Maya Hambro rang. ‘Don’t freak out,’ she said. ‘It’s not hugely exciting, but it’s a great opportunity.’ The Crown was auditioning five potential Camillas for season three and wanted someone to ‘read in’ for Diana, alongside Josh O’Connor, playing Prince Charles. ‘It’s paid,’ Hambro added, ‘and you’ll be off-camera, but the room will be full of producers, directors and casting people.’

Corrin learnt the lines, devoured count - less books and documentaries about Diana, and took a deep breath. ‘It was kind of perfect for me, very much starting out, to be in an audition, but under no pressure.’

In a lunch break, one of the directors took her aside and asked if she would like to do more work on the character. ‘Can we put you on tape as well?’ he asked. ‘Don’t get your hopes up, Emma,’ Hambro warned. ‘It wasn’t an audition.’

But there were pointers. ‘I had some meetings. They called to check a few times to see what work I was doing. Little things. Then the public casting started and they invited me to audition.’

Hundreds of girls were seen. Corrin’s audition lasted for two hours and at the end of it she told a friend: ‘If this goes no further, it’s been the best time of my life.’ Corrin believes her impromptu rendering of All I Ask of You, from the musical The Phantom of the Opera, helped to clinch it. As an ill-judged seventh anniversary present to the Prince of Wales, Diana arranged to have herself filmed on the West End stage, performing the song in costume with the orchestra. ‘Can you sing it now?’ Morgan asked. Robert Sterne, the casting director, called up the karaoke version on YouTube. He took the male part and Corrin sang the female part.

‘“My God,” I thought, “What am I doing?”’ Corrin recalls. ‘I hadn’t sung it in ages. I hadn’t warmed up. I was slightly flying by the seat of my pants, feeling absolutely mortified. They’ve since told me that it was the fact that I was so willing to do it that shocked them. They didn’t think I would.’

There was a further audition when she was summoned for a chemistry read with Josh O’Connor, but it sounds like a formality. Moments after arriving, the costume department were taking her measurements. The director Ben Caron offered her the role then and there, on set. ‘After that long process, it was the most wonderful way for it to end,’ says Corrin. ‘I had the most intense rush of feelings I’ve ever experienced.’

Though she had vowed not to say anything about being offered the role of Diana, she went straight to her family home in Sevenoaks to tell her parents – Juliette, a speech therapist, and Chris, a businessman. Perhaps because of her South African mother’s resemblance to the Princess, Corrin had always been fascinated by Diana, and was an avid follower of The Crown. ‘I am very proud,’ she says. ‘Joining this incredibly talented acting family was just surreal.’

The show’s research department produced a huge lever-arch file of everything she needed to know, episode by episode. Corrin was not quite two when Diana died in August 1997, aged 36. ‘I have no living memory of her and I think that was useful.’ She met Diana’s former private secretary Patrick Jephson, who told her not to forget that Diana was funny and happy much of the time. ‘Do you think she loved Charles?’ she asked him. He replied, ‘Undoubtedly.’

And she watched the 2017 Channel 4 documentary Diana: In Her Own Words obsessively. ‘It helped me get a grip on her voice and the way she reflected on what happened to her. It was very useful to hear her talk about the massive shift from being in Earl’s Court with her flatmates to the isolation of Palace life. I don’t like using the word naive about her – it does her an injustice – but it was so different from how she’d imagined. She’s in a kind of dream, waiting for someone to care she’s there.’

The ‘weird parallels’ between her experience of being plucked from obscurity and Diana’s are inescapable. ‘Ben Caron said to me, “Look, your life’s going to change in very much the same way as hers did. If anything happens that makes you feel scared or overwhelmed, if there are photographers following you, just use those feelings [in the part].”

‘That was incredibly useful because it has been a bit like that. It can feel very much like a runaway train, but I can control it, I can slow it down by being more careful. I get very anxious doing press and events, so it’s important I surround myself with people I get on with and really trust.’

The show’s research department produced a huge lever-arch file of everything she needed to know, episode by episode. Corrin was not quite two when Diana died in August 1997, aged 36. ‘I have no living memory of her and I think that was useful.’ She met Diana’s former private secretary Patrick Jephson, who told her not to forget that Diana was funny and happy much of the time. ‘Do you think she loved Charles?’ she asked him. He replied, ‘Undoubtedly.’

And she watched the 2017 Channel 4 documentary Diana: In Her Own Words obsessively. ‘It helped me get a grip on her voice and the way she reflected on what happened to her. It was very useful to hear her talk about the massive shift from being in Earl’s Court with her flatmates to the isolation of Palace life. I don’t like using the word naive about her – it does her an injustice – but it was so different from how she’d imagined. She’s in a kind of dream, waiting for someone to care she’s there.’

The ‘weird parallels’ between her experience of being plucked from obscurity and Diana’s are inescapable. ‘Ben Caron said to me, “Look, your life’s going to change in very much the same way as hers did. If anything happens that makes you feel scared or overwhelmed, if there are photographers following you, just use those feelings [in the part].”

‘That was incredibly useful because it has been a bit like that. It can feel very much like a runaway train, but I can control it, I can slow it down by being more careful. I get very anxious doing press and events, so it’s important I surround myself with people I get on with and really trust.’

Her team of five professionals are also friends – her agent Hambro, stylist Harry Lambert, best known for his work with Harry Styles, US managers Charles Mastropietro and Frank Frattaroli, who look after Frances McDormand and Willem Dafoe, and her publicist Pandora Weldon. These are the people who advise and protect her – sometimes from herself. ‘I am a people-pleaser. I don’t like letting people down.’

Another route to getting into character was being fitted for both the wedding dress and the black satin gown inspired by the one Diana wore to her first official public engagement with Prince Charles – the moment when she is transformed from shy nursery teacher to movie-star celebrity. ‘When you first meet her she’s wearing rather frumpy skirts,’ says Corrin. ‘But later you can tell that the clothes she wears help her to stand up and feel that she has a voice.’

Corrin shares a flat in London with four friends, none of them actors, with whom she went to university. ‘It’s nice to come back to people who really know you. It helps to balance out some of the silliness that comes with this job, like having your face on the cover of a magazine. It’s great to have people taking the p—s out of you, which they do – constantly. It keeps me grounded.’ She says there is no boyfriend on the scene. ‘I’d rather navigate this on my own. It’s nicer to feel like I’m taking care of me.’ She is reluctant to speculate about the future except to say that her next move may be a sideways one: she is exploring the idea of going into production.

Filming started in September 2019 in the cold and windswept Scottish Highlands where The Balmoral Test (episode two) was clearly as much a test of Emma Corrin the untried actor as of Lady Diana Spencer’s suitability for royal life. She turns out at first light to stalk a wounded stag with the Duke of Edinburgh (Tobias Menzies), who is captivated by her girlish charm and her willingness to muck in.

I love being outside and getting stuck into stuff,’ Corrin says. ‘It was vital for getting to grips with her character because those scenes with Philip show that although she’s being tested, although she’s young and nervous, she plays this game; she knows the rules. I refuse to believe for one minute that she didn’t know what she was doing. She is flirtatious in a nice way. I love her dynamic with Philip. There is a moving last scene [after the marriage has fallen apart] when he says to her, “We are all outsiders and I do understand.” But he couldn’t really understand in the end, I think.’

The relationship with Olivia Colman was so comfortable that she wondered how they would ever get in character for their one-on-one encounter in episode six, when the Queen accuses Diana of deliberately playing to the gallery and eclipsing Charles on their Australia tour. ‘I knew the weight of that scene and wanted to do it justice. But we were laughing and joking and being completely silly beforehand. I’m thinking: “She’s meant to be horrible to Diana. How can I do this?” Colly’s [Colman’s nickname] so nice, the least intimidating person in the world, and she’s got a lovely maternal energy on set. The Queen’s meant to be completely the opposite. But honestly, at the flick of a switch she was in character. I was absolutely terrified. No acting required.’

Corrin and Josh O’Connor are poignant in their hopeless union. ‘Charles and Diana both had unsupported, isolated upbringings that led to a massive desire for a maternal figure in their lives,’ says Corrin. ‘Neither could be that for the other, so there was an impossibility in the relationship, no matter how much they loved one another.’

The actors established an instant rapport and would devise silly word games to keep themselves amused when filming was slack. Yet their wounding on-screen arguments are masterclasses in marital despair. After so much public restraint, Corrin admits she liked shouting. ‘Raising my voice felt new and quite dangerous.’

Despite the depth of her research, Corrin likes to remind herself, and me, that The Crown is a writer’s take on the Royal family, based on certain key events and characters. But now the series has shifted closer to the present day, she is aware of the sensibilities of the people portrayed. ‘We can say as much as we like that it’s Peter Morgan’s version, it’s fictitious, but actually, you know, it is Diana, she’s real: an exceptional person who had an exceptional effect on many people.’

She can ‘totally imagine’ that Princes William and Harry would prefer not to see their mother’s life on screen. ‘In their place, I don’t think I would want to. I felt overwhelming frustration at the speculation about Diana when I was doing the research. If I’m feeling that, how much more tired the family must be about the endless commentary from people who feel like they own her.’

Prince Harry, in particular, is said to be upset by the inclusion of his mother’s bulimia, something Corrin insisted on doing ‘properly’ – that is, showing Diana at her most desolate, bingeing and then making herself sick.

‘This kind of thing couldn’t just be alluded to,’ she explains. ‘It’s something I don’t want to shy away from. The people [who suffer from the condition] are being done a disservice if it’s not shown. I really wanted to get to grips with it.’ To understand bulimia and how to portray it, Corrin worked with the charity Beat, an eating disorder support group.

‘For the Diana of the series, the Diana we’re creating, it was a response to her loneliness, a way of controlling something when she felt she couldn’t control any other thing; a purging, a secret she could carry around with her. She had this thing that almost became a friend, that she could rely on.’

Through total immersion in the Princess’s life, Corrin says Diana has become like a companion to her, but there are still things she doesn’t understand. Sacrificial lamb or an agent of her own unhappiness? I ask. ‘None of us is perfect,’ she says carefully, ‘placed in extreme circumstances, as she was.’

She would like to have met her in the flesh. ‘I’d want to ask her what it really felt like because that’s the only thing I can’t ever know. I have all the factual information, but it doesn’t tell me what she actually felt leaving the innermost circle of royalty, whether she found personal happiness.’ I think what makes Corrin exceptional is that she actually cares.

The actors established an instant rapport and would devise silly word games to keep themselves amused when filming was slack. Yet their wounding on-screen arguments are masterclasses in marital despair. After so much public restraint, Corrin admits she liked shouting. ‘Raising my voice felt new and quite dangerous.’

Despite the depth of her research, Corrin likes to remind herself, and me, that The Crown is a writer’s take on the Royal family, based on certain key events and characters. But now the series has shifted closer to the present day, she is aware of the sensibilities of the people portrayed. ‘We can say as much as we like that it’s Peter Morgan’s version, it’s fictitious, but actually, you know, it is Diana, she’s real: an exceptional person who had an exceptional effect on many people.’

She can ‘totally imagine’ that Princes William and Harry would prefer not to see their mother’s life on screen. ‘In their place, I don’t think I would want to. I felt overwhelming frustration at the speculation about Diana when I was doing the research. If I’m feeling that, how much more tired the family must be about the endless commentary from people who feel like they own her.’

Prince Harry, in particular, is said to be upset by the inclusion of his mother’s bulimia, something Corrin insisted on doing ‘properly’ – that is, showing Diana at her most desolate, bingeing and then making herself sick.

‘This kind of thing couldn’t just be alluded to,’ she explains. ‘It’s something I don’t want to shy away from. The people [who suffer from the condition] are being done a disservice if it’s not shown. I really wanted to get to grips with it.’ To understand bulimia and how to portray it, Corrin worked with the charity Beat, an eating disorder support group.

‘For the Diana of the series, the Diana we’re creating, it was a response to her loneliness, a way of controlling something when she felt she couldn’t control any other thing; a purging, a secret she could carry around with her. She had this thing that almost became a friend, that she could rely on.’

Through total immersion in the Princess’s life, Corrin says Diana has become like a companion to her, but there are still things she doesn’t understand. Sacrificial lamb or an agent of her own unhappiness? I ask. ‘None of us is perfect,’ she says carefully, ‘placed in extreme circumstances, as she was.’

She would like to have met her in the flesh. ‘I’d want to ask her what it really felt like because that’s the only thing I can’t ever know. I have all the factual information, but it doesn’t tell me what she actually felt leaving the innermost circle of royalty, whether she found personal happiness.’ I think what makes Corrin exceptional is that she actually cares.

Sorry for the duplicates, DL does not like iPad.

Look at these spitting image slippers! The are very vaginal!

[quote] Series four covers the turbulent decade from 1979 when Margaret Thatcher (a brilliant Gillian Anderson) reaches Number 10. Lord Mountbatten, the Queen’s cousin, is murdered on his boat by the IRA, Princess Anne’s marriage collapses, Michael Fagan breaks into Buckingham Palace and sits on the Queen’s bed – and a shy, upper-class girl of 19, a virginal kindergarten teacher, appears from nowhere as the answer to the 33-year-old Prince of Wales’s urgent marriage problem.

That's interesting--it sounds like Anne's marital woes will be an important storyline, so that means Erin Doherty (everyone's favorite last season) will get some very good screen-time.

[quote] The relationship with Olivia Colman was so comfortable that she wondered how they would ever get in character for their one-on-one encounter in episode six, when the Queen accuses Diana of deliberately playing to the gallery and eclipsing Charles on their Australia tour.

Diana and Charles went to Australia in 1983: so that means the first six episodes of the ten-episode season will only cover years 1979-1983, and 1984-1990 (when the season ends) will get only four episodes.

I wonder who will play Tiggy Legge-Bourke. She had an affair with Charles too, didn't she?

What sort of name is Tiggy, anyway?

Josh O'Connor is very good casting for Charles.

R220, the poshies love a nickname.

If 84 to 90 is only getting 4 episodes, that means it's doubtful they will cover Andrew's wedding to Fergie. I'm guessing the series will keep Andrew on the backburner given his current toxic reputation.

[QUOTE] I was one of a small detachment of journalists sent to Gibraltar to cover the first leg of the royal honeymoon in August 1981.

God you’re OLD

Season 3 ended with Elizabeth telling Margaret how much she means to her and that she can't go on without her. We know what the end of the show will be.

Showrunner Peter Morgan speaks about why "The Crown" will never cover Prince Harry's and Meghan's relationship:

[quote]In its upcoming fourth season, The Crown will introduce one of the modern monarchy's most important figures: Princess Diana. This means the Netflix drama will also be laying the ground work for one of the royal family's biggest scandals—Princess Diana and Prince Charles' acrimonious divorce and Charles' affair with his now-wife, Camilla Parker-Bowles.

[quote]But, fans of the royal drama won't get to see one of the biggest recent real-life royal ~dramas~ play out in the series: Prince Harry and Meghan Markle's royal exit.

[quote] In an interview with Town & Country, series creator Peter Morgan weighed in on how the series will handle Harry and Meghan's tumultuous royal saga. The short answer: It won't.

[quote] Although [Peter] Morgan initially said the fifth installment would be the last, the show has since expanded to a sixth, focused on the administrations of John Major and Tony Blair. But don’t expect it to go any further; Morgan has no interest in tackling the present-day royals, and certainly not their most recent foibles. [bold]“The Meghan and Harry story is nowhere near over yet,” he says. “And I’m happy that I’m never going to write it.” [/bold]

[quote] If 84 to 90 is only getting 4 episodes, that means it's doubtful they will cover Andrew's wedding to Fergie. I'm guessing the series will keep Andrew on the backburner given his current toxic reputation.

I think it actually is because they just don't have space for it given how many characters they already have to focus on (Elizabeth, Philip, Charles, Diana, Anne, Camilla, and Margaret). The last season hardly showed Andrew and Edward at all, even though they were pretty much at the center of the queen's and Philip's actual lives in the time period covered (they were much more hands-on parents for the two younger boys than for Charles and Anne, because they had more free time and regretted not giving Charles and Anne enough attention after George VI's death).

Since they've been pretty quiet about the actors who are playing Andrew, Edward, and Fergie this season (though they have all been cast), I think you can bet those three actors won't be much in evidence.

The poster on here protecting her precious Kate is hilarious. Morgan said he wouldn't show Meghan. Fair enough - she came on the scene in 2015.

Nothing to stop him featuring young Kate, though, who met William in 2001, only four years after Diana died. There's plenty to say about super grifter Kate and her days on the yacht with the rich old men. She deliberately applied to St Andrews so she had a chance of snagging William.

Really interesting interview with Gillian Anderson about "The Crown" and Margaret Thatcher in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Anderson usually becomes very quiet and passive when interviewed on TV for news sources (the interviewers always wind up talking too much as a result, to fill in her silences), so it's really interesting listening to her talk more fully about the role.

There is a moment in screenwriter Peter Morgan's 2006 film The Queen when the monarch, in conversation with her private secretary, quips: "I don't measure the depth of a curtsy, I leave that to my sister." That notion is put to the test early in the new season of Morgan's television prequel, The Crown, when Elizabeth II (Olivia Colman) comes face to face with her first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson), and the latter descends slowly to her knees.

That moment of genuflection, says Anderson, is revelatory. "It's been written that no one curtsied deeper than Margaret Thatcher, and she really believed in the monarchy, she believed in it constitutionally," Anderson says. "Regardless of what then transpired, she was brought up respecting royalty and being in awe of and slightly awkward around [the Queen] because of that reverence."

The fourth season of The Crown, which bows on Netflix on November 15, takes its story into the 1980s, introducing Lady Diana Spencer (Emma Corrin), following Charles (Josh O'Connor) and Diana on their tour of Australia in 1983, and exploring key historic events such as the death of Lord Mountbatten in 1979, the Falklands War in 1982, and the breakdown of Charles and Diana's marriage.

At the centre of the narrative, however, is the Queen's relationship with her prime ministers, and in particular Thatcher – aka The Iron Lady – who was elected in May 1979 and was finally ousted by party in-fighting in November 1990.

For the role, Anderson pored over historical accounts of the relationship between monarch and prime minister. Some suggest, playing into a familiar media narrative, that the two women did not get along. "Thatcher absolutely believed that she was making Britain great again," Anderson says. "Whether you agree with her tactics and her policies, she felt passionately about the country. And so does the Queen. I'd have to imagine that that would be recognised [between the two women]."

Other accounts, she says, suggest the Royal Family felt Thatcher was vulgar. "There's no ignoring the fact that there were a lot of similarities between them, and yet they respond to situations, respond to decisions in a very, very different way," Anderson says. "Over a long period of time that must have been challenging, to have to sit every week discussing things, knowing the other has a completely differing opinion. It's a very complex relationship."

Anderson's performance in The Crown is illuminating. She quickly takes on Thatcher's very distinctive voice and walk, and, in concert with hair designer Kate Hall and costume designer Amy Roberts, her very specific hairstyle and wardrobe.

But it is a balance, Anderson says, beginning with a detailed study of the woman herself, which needed ultimately to find its life in something less based in mimicry. "Certainly in the practice of finding the walk, there are things … where to put one's weight, which foot was turned slightly inwards. How she used her arm, how she held her bag," Anderson says. "But there is also an element of the process of acting where we do have to let go and just trust that it's there somewhere." (cont.)

(cont.) Clothes, too, made the woman, Anderson adds. As did her hair. "She narrowed in on that hairstyle very early in her political life and God only knows why she chose it and why she looked in the mirror and thought, this is the one I'm going to keep," Anderson says. "And she was completely obsessed with clothes. [Was it] making the most of what little she had, or creating a look of being in a more prominent class [her father was a shop-owner]? Some have said it was more about armour, power dressing. And all of those things may be true."

Though Anderson comes into the world of The Crown as part of its fourth season, she has lived the longer journey of the series in her private life. Since 2016 she has been in a relationship with Morgan, the show's creator and screenwriter.

"It's such a huge part of his life," Anderson says. "Eight years of the same routine every day; he gets up really, really early and he writes for a few hours. And pretty much any time he's on a phone call, it's to do with The Crown. It's a really big part of his life, so it became a big part of my life from quite early on in our relationship."

At the heart of Morgan's writing is an exquisite dance between the gravity of the subject matter – the notion that the crown itself is worn by a woman anointed by God to hold that post for her whole life, "whether it be long or short" – and moments within that world that, by virtue of their eccentricity, ancient ritual or disconnection from ordinary life, become innately funny.

As Thatcher enters the narrative, there are also some golden comedy moments, including scenes where the British leader is mortified at the thought of anyone other than herself unpacking her husband's suitcase. And Morgan gives Thatcher absolute zingers. In one scene she quips to husband Dennis: "I don't need to look at you to show I'm listening and I don't have time to be nice."

"It's on the page," Anderson says. "And it made perfect sense. We don't think of her as having humour, but if you watch her, she was incredibly quick-witted. I think she had a spectacular sense of humour. She may not have got jokes, but she understood how to make them."

Other moments reveal Thatcher's anachronistic world view. That she still ironed her husband's shirts and cooked his meals. And that she did not think women were "suited" to positions of power. In conversation with the Queen, Britain's first female prime minister is incredulous at the notion that her first cabinet might include a woman.

"She certainly had an opportunity to help women up the ladder, so to speak, and wasn't really focused on that," Anderson says. "We are quite used to the idea of seeing women in power, but back then it was unusual. In terms of their degree of power, to come across another woman in a similar position, and to come at it from two completely different standpoints, I don't think either [the Queen or Thatcher] had experience with working with women of that status prior to that." (cont.)

(cont.) Anderson is no stranger to female-led narratives. On British television she has delivered commanding performances in roles such as Lady Dedlock in Bleak House, Stella Gibson in The Fall and Miss Havisham in Great Expectations. And on the stage she dazzled as Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire and Margo Channing in All About Eve.

But perhaps her most enduring, and impactful, performance was as FBI special agent Dana Scully in the American television series The X-Files. "Scully wasn't the lead in any sense, it was a co-lead relationship [with actor David Duchovny's character, Fox Mulder] but Chris Carter created one of the most iconic feminist characters that's ever been on television," Anderson says of the role.

"Even though I was always incredibly grateful for the role, for the opportunity … I think it took hindsight to fully appreciate, not just the gift that she was, but the full impact that she has had."

More specifically, that is, the so-called "Scully effect". In a 2017 survey of women working in the fields of science, technology, engineering and maths, nearly two thirds who identified the character said Scully had directly had an impact on their career choice. Anderson with co-star David Duchovny in The X-Files.

"I could hear that back then, but I'm not sure that I fully understood what it meant and how big the impact was on so many different ages of women," Anderson says. "And I still run into people, I mean, before lockdown… I was going through an airport and a woman at the border stopped me and said, 'I only have my job because of you'."

At the giddy height of the popularity of The X-Files and its two spin-off movies, it would have seemed improbable to imagine the Chicago-born, London-raised actress would reinvent herself as a leading woman on British television and on the stage.

The transformational moment was when she was asked to play Lady Dedlock in Bleak House, a BBC drama serial based on the Charles Dickens novel of the same name. At the time it seemed an improbable piece of casting given the perception that Anderson was an "American" actress.

"Having grown up in the UK, having seen actresses jump between television, film and theatre, that's what I wanted my life to be," Anderson says. "And the fact that it was so rare in the States and women who did television were looked down upon, and not on the same level as film actors or even doing theatre, bothered me.

"But then, even when I was approached to do Bleak House, I couldn't believe that they were coming to me because it was everything that I've always wanted to do," she says. "So when they asked me, I remember thinking, what makes you think I can do this? Because I think I can do it. I was so grateful and confounded."

The significant roles that followed included Anna Pavlovna in War & Peace and Jean Milburn in Netflix's critically acclaimed Sex Education. On the stage, turns as the sultry, tortured Blanche DuBois and embittered Margo Channing won applause from critics.

In a sense, I suggest to Anderson, these women share something with Thatcher. All found themselves in positions of immense power but ultimately had to contend with losing it. For DuBois, the fading of her looks; for Channing, the emergence of the younger Eve; and for Thatcher, the humiliating defeat – and, she felt, betrayal – of an internal party coup. (cont.)

(cont.) "Blanche was very, very troubled and she was steeped in alcoholism as well, and leaving behind so much trauma, and over time her power was, through circumstance and her own actions, really whittled away, and with Margo Channing, she ends up learning that one can [still be] powerful, and it was her shifting of perspective that reunited her with her power," Anderson says.

With Thatcher, however, "she was so devoted to herself as a politician and really that was the only way that she knew how to be", Anderson says. "Without that, she really didn't find anything else. She was never meant to be on the backbenches. They're very different stories, but the only one who comes out in a positive way, I think, is Margo Channing, because she realises that there are other things in life than material things and power."

THE END

Shame they had to find an American to play Thatcher.

[quote]R13 the two Margarets in this series have been prettier and better looking than the two Elizabeths.

Well, Big Liz was/is a squat, horse-faced frau frump.

There’s no getting around that.

[quote] Shame they had to find an American to play Thatcher.

Although born in Chicago, and of American citizenship, Gillian Anderson has spent almost as much of her life in the UK as she has in the USA. Soon after she was born, her family moved to London, and she lived in the UK until age 11, then moved with them back to the States; since 2002 she has lived in the UK and not in the US.

She’s a whore!

John Lithgow played Churchill on this show and won an Emmy for it, and he is an American.

The poster on here protecting her precious Kate is hilarious. Morgan said he wouldn't show Meghan. Fair enough - she came on the scene in 2015.

Nothing to stop him featuring young Kate, though, who met William in 2001, only four years after Diana died. There's plenty to say about super grifter Kate and her days on the yacht with the rich old men. She deliberately applied to St Andrews so she had a chance of snagging William.

Teenage Kate will feature in Series 6, and don't expect it to be a flattering portrait.

So many stand-out performances in The Crown; Claire Foy, Olivia Colman, John Lithgow and Josh O'Connor.

r241: don't forget Erin Doherty as Anne!

I just an interview with the cast on youtube and Peter Morgan said since the first season aired everyone in television comes up to him at parties and says, "You ARE going to put in more Erin Doherty next season, aren't you?"

I actually thought Colman captured Elizabeth perfectly.

But the real Elizabeth is (by all accounts) kind of lumpy and slow, which does not make for a TV character that people love.

I've read she's an excellent mimic and has a keen sense of humour.

Josh looks really good in that interview R242.

I'm trying to creep on Tobias Menzies' house, but he's strategically placed his laptop so you can't really see anything.

They need to show Prince Charles cock.

I'm looking forward to it for the Diana stuff alone.

I also love the actors who play Charles and Anne.

I found Series 3 much less compelling than 1 and 2z except for the episode where they recreated the Aberfan disaster. Claire Foy has a magnetic presence which the older Colman lacks. I hope Emma Corrin will liven things up.

Who would play teenage Kate in 2001? They'd need to find someone beautiful. Maybe that girl who plays Dotty in EastEnders.

I have to admit, I almost skipped Aberfan because the title made me think it was going to be some dull episode about a hunting trip to an obscure Scottish castle, but it was supposed to tell us something about changing times. I was very surprised by where it went. Maybe the best episode in the whole series.

r10 I'm masturbating.

Aren't you always r250?

This girl Milly Zero would make a good teenage Kate.

Currently starring in EastEnders and playing Dot Cotton's granddaughter.

Another trailer has dropped, this time with Thatcher speaking (Anderson gets the weird voice and accent down pretty well) and a little bit of Diana speaking. Also shows Diana rollerskating through Kensington Palace (which she did in real life), and also apparently performing in the bizarre video she made for Charles on stage at 'Phantom of the Opera" for an anniversary present.

[quote]I still don't understand their thought process behind skipping over Anne kidnapping attempt. That's high drama that would have been a great way to show off her character and it fits into the time frame of last season. Feels like the showrunner is more concerned about kissing the Royal Family's ass than actually telling a compelling story.

Moran just likes telling the stories of men more than the women and gets resentful when he can't focus entirely on some boring side quest the Queen's husband takes.

The moon landing episode is when I finally gave up on the series.

New Tatler interview with Emma Corrin and Josh O'Connor.

LOVE that new trailer! Is that song How Soon is Now by The Smiths?

I think the new castings work, with some reservations. Josh looks and sounds so similar to Charles, as does Emma. Two inches shorter and more round faced, without the huge flashing blue eyes, but at least her eyes are light, not brown like Olivia's.

Maggie Thatcher never had that willowy grace Anderson has, or her sculptured face, and the accent seems a bit constipated. Maggie came from Grantham where many speak in a whiny Lincolnshire accent. She tried to 'speak posh' but retained the whine and a lighter tone than Gillian has.

How Soon Is Now Lyrics...very apt

I am the son

And the heir

Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar

I am the son and heir

Of nothing in particular

You shut your mouth

How can you say

I go about things the wrong way?

I am human and I need to be loved

Just like everybody else does

I am the son And the heir Of a shyness that is criminally vulgar

There's a club if you'd like to go

You could meet somebody who really loves you

So you go and you stand on your own

And you leave on your own

And you go home and you cry

And you want to die

When you say it's gonna happen "now"

When exactly do you mean?

See I've already waited too long

And all my hope is gone

[quote] I have to admit, I almost skipped Aberfan because the title made me think it was going to be some dull episode about a hunting trip to an obscure Scottish castle, but it was supposed to tell us something about changing times. I was very surprised by where it went. Maybe the best episode in the whole series.

I'm glad you appreciated it but I have to admit, I never understand why people are so lacking in knowledge about the world and history. Perhaps it's just that I have been interested in the world and history since I was a child but I have known about Aberfan since I was fairly young and I live in the US.

r252 She has kind of a white trash look. What do the British say... "chav?"

r251 Currently about twice a week.

It's funny how awful Diana used to dress before she got stylists as the Princess of Wales. She looks so terrible in that clip in her roller skating outfit.

r249 I really did not like Aberfan because it started strong then became rather boring and cold after the PM arrives at the scene. It never really built up to much of anything and the CGI was rather bad. In S1 and S2, they'd accompany slightly dramatic episodes with a long shot of something with the theme song playing. This one spent more effort on Elizabeth being a cold fish, then it did on the drama of the moment. Personally, I just stick around to watch the initial drama then skip to the next episode. I don't even bother with Moon Dust.

[quote] This one spent more effort on Elizabeth being a cold fish, then it did on the drama of the moment.

Of course it did: the show is about her, not about Wales.

R259, I am knowledgeable about world history, which is why I did not think Aberfan could be significant. But I guess disasters do not get much play outside their own country's borders.

Who will play Meghan Markle?

[quote] Who will play Meghan Markle?

Stefonknee Wolscht, Rose.

R257 Anderson is too attractive to play Thatcher but I think she's got the voice down fairly well (not as good as Streep but well)

^agreed. Hope this isn’t The Thatcher show.

Does anybody know when series 4 begins in the US?

R269 Gillian Anderson said in an a couple of interviews that Margaret is a "peripheral" character. Anderson will likely be nominated and win as a best supporting actress.

I'm going to be honest here, am I the only one underwhelmed by Olivia Colman as the Queen? I know that in real life, Colman is super anitmated and expressive and she's talked about having to really pull back when playing them Queen, but I think she's goes to far. She seems lifeless in the role. I think Foy was better able to walk the line between being reserved and but warm in a better way.

R270 It comes out November 15 globally.

R271. I am mixed on Colman, who I generally love. She hasn’t disappeared into the part (I didn’t think Mirren did, either. Maybe it can’t really be done. I find the more unknown actors better at it but for precisely that. Oddly, Hurricane Bonham Carter is great in my view.). Part of it may be she looks so much like Olivia Colman. I would have rather Keeley Hawes. Am dreading Imelda Staunton.

All that said expect series four will be really good.

The new season premieres Sunday November 15th.

You can Google any show's premiere date.

[quote] Gillian Anderson said in an a couple of interviews that Margaret is a "peripheral" character. Anderson will likely be nominated and win as a best supporting actress.

Peter Morgan has said multiple times the show is about the Queen and her relationship with the people closest to her: her prime ministers, her husband, her parents, her sister, and her children as adults (and their spouses). This means that all the characters are secondary (although this also means Prince Philip is the leading male character by default).

Anderson would only be nominated as a supporting actress, just as John Lithgow's Churchill in the first season was nominated and won for best supporting actor. Similarly, Emma Corrin (who has already begun to receive praise from critics who have seen the upcoming season) as Lady Diana Spencer would also only be nominated as Best Supporting Actress. Whoever plays Elizabeth II is always the only real female star each season in terms of the way Peter Morgan has conceived of the series.

I have a slightly different opinion to most on Streep as Thatcher. I thought she was great in the role as the elderly, alzheimers-ridden version, but the younger version was too much of an imitation, rather than a real person, if that makes any sense? You could see her acting. It was a really good imitation, but never let you forget it; it held you at a distance. Anderson, from what I've seen, may make her more believable as a person, even if she doesn't do it as perfectly.

I'm glad I've already seen The Crown so far, just because that trailer made it seem so dramatic, in a kind of silly way, I thought. But I know that's just trailer stuff, and the show will be good. Looking forward to the 15th very much!

Click-click-click, r276.

If there was ever an actress whose performances are "click-click-click" it is Katherine Hepburn.

Her only authenticity was to appear artificially affected.

They say the tension of the scene where Anne head butts Diana is cut by a drunken QM and PM falling into the moat.

are you drunk, r279?

Let us hope so r280.

What many want to know is will Josh O'Connor be presenting his beautiful penis?

I love Olivia Coleman, but Foy was the best. IMO, We got to glimpse Foy's Queen when she was off duty so to speak. She had more dimensions to her character, more depth. Coleman's just seems off. Way too formal all the time and that voice. It's just awful. Way too nasal and high pitched and affected.

I don't agree, entirely. Colman's story arc is more about reaction as a settled woman, where Foy's was a young woman finding her footing. I thought Colman was terrific in that what might have been dinner with Porchy and later when Philip and she scheduled sex... she looked really happy. (and I R272.... not mad about Colman but I think she's fine because she's a terrific actress, if unable to disappear into the character.)

And I still dread Imelda Staunton.

There's this one great flash I just noticed in the trailer where Diana and Charles arguing and she's not crying she's fucking glaring.

I think this is going to awesomely entertaining.

R284 My issue with Colman's portal is that I think she comes across as too stern, almost angry. I think towards the end of the series 3 she got a better grip on the character and relaxed her a bit more particularly in family moments, the clips in the season 4 trailers seem more promising than last year.

They should drop it now to help us get through the next few days.

r287 a friend and I were just saying the same thing. It would be nice to have this right now.

[quote] [R284] My issue with Colman's portal is that I think she comes across as too stern, almost angry.

You should hear the issues people have with MY portal! Especially Iola.

There was so much conflict between Lilibet and Philip in 1 and 2 that I found the tranquil romantic vibe of 3 quite jarring.

I dunno. The early episodes were dignified and interesting. This looks terribly overwrought. Sonorous voice: "You'll be King one day......" Personally I'd like the 1970s BBC/Masterpiece Theater intellectual highbrow video treatment of this story.

The 80s were terribly overwrought.

R290 Well, it's a fact that the Queen and Prince Philip's marriage hit a rocky patch right after she became Queen that lasted until the late 1950s. By the 1970s (when season 3 takes place), their relationship was on much firmer ground.

[quote] Sonorous voice: "You'll be King one day......"

That voice belongs to Charles Dance as Lord Mountbatten. He did say that sort of thing all the time to Charles before he died.

Was Lord Mountbatten a screaming queen or nah?

He was bi. In modern terms, he may have been gay but married a woman and procreated because that's what was expected back then.

R296 & R295 both Lord Mountbatten & a Mountbatten (his wife) were known to have large sexual appetites and both bisexual. Among Lord Mountbatten male conquests were Prince George, Duke of Kent (the brother of the Duke of Windsor and George VI, and an uncle of the present Queen) and Noel Coward.

He also liked young boys r297, as it has been well documented. His family had no qualms about leaving Charles in his care. They might not have known about his darker desires but it makes one wonder.

R298 I have heard that too, but I do not believe for a moment anything happened between him and Charles. That relationship was a total "grandfather/grandson" platonic friendship. There is no way Louis would have buggered Philip's (who was like a son to him) eldest son.

[quote]R266 Who will play Meghan Markle?

[quote]R267 Stefonknee Wolscht

I had the interesting experience of working as assistant to one of the editors (yes, there are more than one) of the recent HQ release "Finding Freedom". I thought you guys - especially the Crown sympathizers, like r267 - might like to know that while the British Royal Family does occasionally come across rather poorly in the book, there were also definitely bits that, while verified to be true by numerous sources, were in the end kept from the finished draft. This was done mostly at the behest of one of our senior editors, who in addition to being quite old is also conservative.

For instance, it was left out that one of the main reasons Prince Harry and Meghan Markle left the U.K. is the noxious stench that fires from QEII's practically decomposing cunt. There is absolutely no way to remove it (the smell) from any room she's entered. This is one reason Miss Markle wanted to use air fresheners in St. George's Chapel at Windsor the day of her wedding. The Prince had warned Markle what it was like to live with this fetid, all-pervading stink but she had no idea it could be so bad. Ultimately, she felt it was best to raise her child away from the toxic reek, which court doctors still do not understand.

Anyway, ask me any questions if you like. My contract with the publisher's up.

That shit isn't funny at all.

I like to think Mountbatten would've been too smart to grab at Charles. He wanted Charles as his son in law and his grandchild to be king. Molesting the heir...big wrench in that plan.

[quote]R301 That shit isn't funny at all.

I know. Saying Meghan Markle should be played by a trans isn’t funny at all[bold] : (

But that’s what the bashers have descended to.

R303, yep, this thread is rotten with decrepit racists all waiting for an opportunity to attack Meghan. Kate looks more like a transwoman than 5 ft 4 Meghan. Kate is 5 ft 10 and flat as a piece of paper.

Meghan should be played by a trained llama.

Feel better?

Mountbatten was obsessed with the idea of Charles marrying Mountbatten's granddaughter Amanda, thus ensuring that a Mountbatten direct descendant would one day be on the throne of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Whatever his proclivities, he never would have risked psychologically damaging Charles, Mountbatten's ticket to Royal immortality.

Oh, it's nicer than Betty Munroe had!

This lands in just ten days now - should get a huge audience in the UK as we're all grimly locked down until the 2 December.

Someone released some clips from the new season: the queen greeting her steed just before the Trooping of the Colour in 1981 (where someone shot blanks at her), and Diana blissing out from the enormous public attention she receives in Sydney in 1983.

Rewatching from S1E1 now. No one wanted Philip for Princess Elizabeth, but I have never heard of any other potential suitors being mentioned? Surely there was a list of suitable, titled English boys. Like they had for Prince Charles when looking for his naive virgin. Anyone know of names I can google?

R310 I’ve read that Queen Mary had a list of potential husbands from when Elizabeth was a girl - all titled, obviously.

But the story goes that Elizabeth fell for Philip as a young teenager and never looked at anybody else.

A big dick will do that to a girl.

Philip was very handsome as a teen and in his 20s, even though he looks like a 28 Days Later extra these days. The Queen fell hard.

S1E4 now...I totally forgot Churchill's secretary girl got hit by a trolly during the coal smog fog.

S1E10. I can't believe how much I don't care about Margaret and Peter Townsend. The first season could have used a lot more of Matt Smith's naked ass...

Many of the reviews are out today--Variety, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, Collider, EW.Com, IGN. A few say the new season is a bit wobbly, but the overwhelming number of them say it's a very strong season, and much stronger than season 3.

SPOILERS FROM REVIEWS:

Gillian Anderson and Emma Corrin both get quite a bit of praise as Thatcher and Diana, with many critics saying the show's highlights this season involve the audiences between the Queen and Thatcher, with the women neither descending to a catfight nor involved in celebrations of women's power, but instead eyeing each other suspiciously and using tricks of politeness to dig at one another. Most critics also agree that the new season shows Olivia Colman at her best because now she finally has an opponent and is not as much on the sidelines as she was last season. A few critics have said Anderson overdoes Thatcher's voice to the point of caricature, but mostly they both receive quite a bit of praise.

Several critics have said one of the best episodes is called "Favourites" where the Queen, moved by Thatcher's sorrow when her car-racing son Mark Thatcher is lost for a few days in the Sahara during an international motorcross, checks up with all four of her (now adult) children, whom she realizes she has mostly ignored throughout their childhoods. Apparently Prince Andrew is treated here as a very odious person, so the Dataloungers who have been angry the show won't depict his relationship with Epstein in future seasons (the showrunner Peter Morgan has said they absolutely won't) can at least rejoice his nastiness is still exposed on the show.

The focus is most squarely on the Queen and Thatcher, and on Charles, Diana, and Camilla. Philip and Margaret are for this season apparently relegated mostly to the sidelines, although Margaret does have one episode mostly about her when she does some investigative work (!) regarding hereditary illness among the Bowes-Lyons side of the family. Anne (disappointingly) also doesn't have a spotlight episode, as many of us had hoped, although some attention is given to her unhappy first marriage with Mark Phillips. Sarah Ferguson is apparently hardly in the new season at all, and little is shown of Diana's own miserable aristocratic family. Another episode said to be among the best of the season involves the Queen's encounter with Michael Fagan, an unemployed painter who in 1982 somehow got into the palace without anyone noticing him and came into her bedroom late at night and talked with her for half an hour before she ran to get help.

Most of the reviews say even though the season shows the darkest side of Charles (which always comes out when he is with his lonely wife), the show is sympathetic towards the points of view and the problems of all three of the members of the Diana-Charles-Camilla triangle while also conceding they all did things they shouldn't have done. Unsurprisingly the scenes involving the marriage are the ones which make the new season seem like a soap opera.

In the various Diana-related shows I've seen, she's either portrayed as the naive school teacher who got in over her head and was treated horribly, or as the woman who almost destroyed the monarchy. There's not often a middle-ground, but it looks like this show may finally show one.

I think I need to binge-watch this show from the beginning.

r317, you could watch the last season (though the first two seasons are better) to figure out what's going on.

[quote]SPOILERS FROM REVIEWS:

Really? We already know exactly what's going to happen. Jesus Christ.

You don't know how it's going to be portrayed, r319.

This was a nice thread until you befouled it.

r320 I'm SO glad you posted spoilers! I don't want to know what happens. Is Margaret Thatcher going to become a superhero and win the Falkland Islands war? Will Diana be turned into a vampire? I really want to be surprised!

**SPOILER ALERT**

The Falkland Islands conflict is almost lost until The Queen sends a telepathic message to Tony Stark, who assembles the Avengers and wins it for Britain.

The spoilers were not about historical events from the era but rather about how the season is constructed and how the characters are portrayed, if you'd had even bothered to read.

Begone, troll.

Flames and Freaks.

We already know how the characters will be portrayed.

R325 I dont know about that. I thought they would make Diana completely innocent but from what I read they show her faults in the marriage too.

How can "we" know how the characters will be portrayed when we haven't even yet seen two of the three major characters this season?

A review sad they show the marriage from both sides and both are at fault. I thought they would make Diana a complete victim in the marriage.

R328 I think most people (aside from the crazed fans) at this point, agree that the Wales marriage was a perfect storm of shit and nobody had clean hands.

'she's either portrayed as the naive school teacher who got in over her head and was treated horribly'

She wasn't a school teacher lol. A school teacher in London wouldn't have been naive at all, and would have had a degree. Diana failed her o levels and worked as a nanny.

Charles should not have chosen someone so woefully lacking in academic qualifications. It was a huge mistake and one he could easily have avoided, with so many at Cambridge to choose from.

They had to find a woman of marrying age who was a virgin. In Britain. In the late 1970s. And she had to be an aristocrat. There were like three women in the whole country who could qualify and Diana was one of them. The other two were probably locked away in an attic on some estate because they couldn't be exposed to sunlight. So Diana was it.

The following generation was very smart to throw off that antiquated bullshit and not concern themselves with such outdated rules.

Getting married at 19, I think we can all agree at this point, is universally a terrible idea.

There would have been plenty of virginal undergrads at Cambridge in the late 70s, esp in the first and second years. Spazzy Charles did not look hard enough. He needed a woman with an intellect to spar with, not an airhead like Diana who read Barbara Cartland.

[quote]There would have been plenty of virginal undergrads at Cambridge in the late 70s,

Not in those circles.

[quote]Getting married at 19, I think we can all agree at this point, is universally a terrible idea.

Definitely. Even just living together at 19 is a terrible idea.

Was Kate Middleton a virgin when WIlliam first shagged her? After that summer on the yacht in the Solent? I doubt it.

Are we going to have to understand O levels, A levels, B levels, etc and forms. All that British school stuff is impossible to understand.

O levels - exams you take at 16. Now called gcses. If you don't pass these, you're a dunce. Diana didn't pass any,

A levels - exams you take at 18, now and in the 1970s. Diana was too dumb to even study for these. Charles got AAC and was given a place at Cambridge University

Degrees - awarded after three years of study at 21. The gap between someone with any kind of degree and a dumbass who failed their o levels is impossible to bridge. Charles should not have even tried.

Princess Diana didn't do quite as well at school as the rest of the family, having failed her O-Levels twice.

But she did excel at deportment (which is an element of etiquette), having attended finishing school in Switzerland.

And she went to the best schools! What an utter spaz.

WTF are O levels?

[quote]There would have been plenty of virginal undergrads at Cambridge in the late 70s, esp in the first and second years. Spazzy Charles did not look hard enough. He needed a woman with an intellect to spar with, not an airhead like Diana who read Barbara Cartland.

His grandmother fully expected he would marry someone born an aristocrat like herself if at all possible.

Not everyone is book smart. And who knows if Diana had a learning disorder. We know much more about these things now. There is def something wrong with Harry yet Charles is the first heir to ever achieve a uni degree. So maybe there is a learning disability on the Spencer side.

Btw, as i am binging past seasons now it is so remarkable how similar the situations of Duke and Duchess if Windsor are to the current Sussexes. It is definitely history repeating itself in a lot of ways.

From the Daily Mail: Prince Harry achieved two A level passes and is now able to continue to pursue his ambition of a career in the Army. His results were Art - B, Geography - D. The Prince of Wales is delighted with his son's achievement: “I am very proud of Harry."

So Harry is actually a lot more academic than his dumb mother and stayed on at school to take A levels having passed some gcses (the 1990s equivalent of O levels).

Nothing is 'wrong' with either Di or Harry - they're just not academic people. Harry learnt to be a helicopter pilot which not everyone can do. Di had no vocation and continued to be childish and chaotic her entire life.

[QUOTE] His grandmother fully expected he would marry someone born an aristocrat like herself if at all possible.

Do you mean his mother, because the Queen mother had very little say over what happened. The home counties were teeming with aristocratic gals. I think all this virginity business is a myth. Was Diana examined by a doctor to determine this? William certainly didn't marry a virgin.

[QUOTE] The ceremony in LA felt a lot like how The Crown portrayed Wallace and Edward. The palace decor in their not quite good enough estate in France, the uniforms that hold no significance.

It's Wallis, dumbass.

I don't see H and M having staff standing around in uniforms and a shabby estate. They moved and became independent of the brf to avoid that stuffiness. Edward remained bitter about his forced abdication until the day he died. Harry seems very relieved to be out and making TV shows in sunny LA, rather than traipsing around cutting ribbons in the rain and always being seen as inferior to his brother.

[quote] So Harry is actually a lot more academic than his dumb mother and stayed on at school to take A levels having passed some gcses (the 1990s equivalent of O levels).

Well, to be fair to Diana, Harry received a much better K-12 education than she did. Diana's father sent her to boarding schools in Switzerland that were more or less finishing schools for rich girls, because she was expected to marry well. They were expensive, but they were not nearly as good academically as Eton, which is where Harry was sent.

[quote] Do you mean his mother, because the Queen mother had very little say over what happened.

She had a lot of say over what happened. You'll find out this season--one of the reasons Diana was so appealing to the royal family when Charles started dating her was because both of her grandmothers had been ladies-in-waiting to the Queen Mother over long periods of time. Her Grandmother Spencer died in the early 70s, but when Diana and Charles started dating, her other grandmother, Lady Fermoy, was still lady-in-the-waiting to the QM.

The QM had quite a lot of influence over the BRF during her lifetime. The current Queen enormously respected her mother, and often (although not always) sought advice from her. Ad of course what the Queen herself wanted, her children usually did, until the strains in Charles and Diana's marriage started showing and Charles started to buck against his mother's and grandmother's advice.

The Queen was such a push over when it came to her mother and sister. Where was Phillip in all of this. I though he was the man of the house in all things up to the Queen's duty. Did he just abdicate fatherhood?

'Diana's father sent her to boarding school in Switzerland'

Nope. Try again. From her Wiki

Diana began her formal education at Silfield Private School in Gayton, Norfolk, and moved to Riddlesworth Hall School, an all-girls boarding school near Thetford, when she was nine.[19] She joined her sisters at West Heath Girls' School in Sevenoaks, Kent, in 1973.[20] She did not shine academically, failing her O-levels twice.

She only went to the finishing school after her o levels.

The strongest scene in S3 was near the very end, when the Queen went to see Margaret after her suicide attempt.

R350 definitely the most emotional scene for both of them.

The new season suggests that Philip developed a crush on Diana when Charles was dating her, which prompted him to urge Charles to marry her.

Season 4 soundtrack announced

R352 I could see that. Old hetero men loove chatting up young women. And not necessarily in a pervy way... It somehow makes them feel young.

A couple episodes into S3 now, and The Queen, now played by Olivia Coleman seems a bit too susceptible to conspiracy theories and rumor! It's a bit too much, methinks. But I recall she gets less deer-in-headlights as the season goes on. Let's hope by the time S4 drops The Queen is morphed into a proper cunt.

I've also heard that Edward had a bit of a crush on Diana.

Edward is a fagele.

Edward and Diana were certainly close in the 1980s: supposedly, she was the one who encouraged him to quit the Royal Marines when he was afraid to tell his parents.

It is strange that in Sophie Rhys-Jones he married her lookalike.

Lots of British women look like Sophie and Diana. After all, they are quite related after a certain point. I wouldn't read much into it, altho Edward did have another blonde (American I think?) before Sophie who fled in horror from the pap attention after only a couple of snaps...

Interested to know if DL thinks Prince Philip was a cheater? Of course he had ample opportunity, but there is the type of man who doesn't cheat, esp. if they think about possible repercussions/fallout. Not every man blindly follows their peen. I think Price Phil probably is not a cheater, without the required vetting and contracts in place, of course.

[quote] I still don't understand their thought process behind skipping over Anne kidnapping attempt. That's high drama that would have been a great way to show off her character and it fits into the time frame of last season. Feels like the showrunner is more concerned about kissing the Royal Family's ass than actually telling a compelling story.

I don't think Peter Morgan did that because he was kissing the royal family's ass (as proof of that, supposedly the series' evident sense of disapproval of the way the Queen and the other royals handle things ratchets up considerably this season, and for the first time the Queen and Charles are both shown as selfish and out of touch, and Andrew and Edward are both shown as creeps).

I think Morgan did the moon episode for a couple of reasons: first of all, in order to attract a high-profile topnotch British actor (which is what Tobias Menzies and the other actor Morgan tried to attract for the role, Paul Bettany, both are) to play Philip in middle age, he had to dangle at least one starring episode over the course of the two-season stint.

He also probably also thought people would be confused if the role of Philip was suddenly shunted to the sidelines in the third season after being one of the three star characters in the first two seasons.

Finally, I think Morgan also did it because he is a middle-aged man (he's in his 50s) and so he likely hugely identifies with the whole idea of a male midlife crisis.

I agree though, that it was by far the weakest episode last season, and that Anne's attempted kidnapping should have been included.

R360, I think I'm probably in the minority on DL, but I don't believe Philip gas been unfaithful to HM in the typical sense. Several biographies has been quick to point out that Philip has been allowed to pursue his own outside interests, which include friendships with women who share his interests. His friendship with Lady Brabourne and their shared interest in carriage driving has never been a secret.

If Philip was unfaithful with the Queen it was almost certainly in the 1950s. I think since the two younger boys were born he's been pretty steady.

Lovely little chat with Olivia and Emma

r360 of course Prince Phillip cheated. He was in a perfect situation to go about his philandering.

1. His wife was NEVER EVER going to divorce him.

2. He had money, power, and looks a triple threat for whores.

3. His social circle was chopped full of cheaters and dead marriages.

4. He's a grifter.

5. HIs wife let him go no long and short tips with just him and his boys. Unless they were jerking each other off I can assume that they were fucking around.

Elizabeth was a nerdy girl that caught a handsome grifter because of her position. I don't even think he ever loved her. He was probably fond of her and she enjoyed getting fucked but all the rest was for money and power.

r365 again, you can tell he doesn't a damn about his family by the way he just left his children like a dead beat father. Phillip had nothing but time on his hands but he never really spent much of it with his kids. So he was there for the money and status like all of the people that married into that family since Elizabeth took over. Ann and Charle's second spouses may be an exception. All the rest are social climbing grifters. There is nothing wrong with any of that!

r363 having children tells you nothing about marriage. Perhaps they found their bedroom groove again, but I doubt Elizabeth is the type to do the fun dirty things that other women could do for Phillip.

We do NOT "rim."

When does this drop?

Nov 15 is Netflix drop date!

S3E4 Bubbikins is fantastic. Anne pulls the olde switcheroo and pushes Princess Alice out to give an interview to the Guardian. What a remarkable woman was Alice! And now Charles Dance has shown up in S3E5. My god half the GoT cast has been in this series...this is Dance's 2nd character in The Crown.

[quote]What a remarkable woman was Alice!

And the show didn't describe the half of it!

[quote] this is Dance's 2nd character in The Crown.

He's only in one role in The Crown, as Lord Louis Mountbatten in seasons 3 and 4.

Coleman approaches the role with grim determination. I like Foy better.

The Queen was pretty grim and determined by the time she hit middle age, r374. Colman is actually playing her as I think more cheerful than she was.

I’m quite looking forward to this. The reviews are strong. I gather it’s the series where the Windsor’s come across as entirely unlikable. It should be quite fascinating.

I just watched Season 3 and thought Olivia Coleman was brilliant portraying Elizabeth as being conflicted about being so emotionless and duty bound. Makes me wonder if the Queen feels the same way.

I cannot wait until tomorrow! Even watching the new extended trailer I've caught new things. There is a quick cut scene where it looks like Diana is grabbing Camilla by the wrist. I hoping for the Camilla vs. Diana story where she insists on going to that party to confront her. The actress who plays Diana is one who really seems to lose herself in the character as does Ann. They are both so drastically different in real life.

What time tomorrow do the episodes drop?

I think in real life we need to make the distinction between official duties and formal behavior and the off duty informal Queen. I've seen short videos of the Queen with her own mother and with her kids and she was funny, and fun. She got excited about the horse races, she laughed and danced and seemed comfortable in her skin.

Now when she had to preside over a formal occasion she attended it with the formality and seriousness she felt 0all her official public duties required.. She never wanted to diminish the Crown, but she knew the difference. Her home life as a child was not serious or formal. Yet, she saw once her father was King, how he was able to maintain two faces, one regal and one private.

I don't think the real Elizabeth is nearly as dour as Colman portrays her. I think she is closer to Foy's Elizabeth. Also, we have to keep in mind the context: This is the Royal Family. Their lives are spent in castles and on estates. They are served 24/7 and she has always experienced a level of deference since birth.

What no one seems to remember is that even if her Uncle David had not abdicated, since he was older, and so were the potential women in his life, the probability is that he would never have children and Elizabeth would have ascended eventually as the young queen Victoria did.

So from the time she was a child she was raised with the 80% probability she would ascend to the throne. Anyway, I'm not impressed with Colman's Elizabeth. She seems to miss the whole point of her. I actually believe Imelda Staunton will be better than Colman.

I am so looking forward to this, I've pretty much run out of things to watch.

The Crown season 4 drops at 8am GMT, which is just six hours away!

If it drops at midnight in NYC, we should just all get access. I've got snacks and weed - I'm ready for this!

You are five hours behind the UK in NYC so the Crown will drop around 2am your time.

Make that 3am New York time. 8am UK time.

Midnight on the west coast then. I'll just have to wait until tomorrow.

I've seen reviews say that Colman is better in season 4. Guess we will see.

Let's hope there's a lot less of Colman with her oh-so-wrong brown eyes in Season 4 and much more of Corrin and O'Connor.

I want someone to wait on me hand and foot. Life is not fair!

'I want someone to wait on me hand and foot. '

Why would you want that unless you're disabled? The idea of someone fussing round me in my own home is anathema.

The Queen Mother had zero stress in her life because she was waited on hand and foot. If the only thing you have to do all day is press the buzzer for another gin and tonic, you'll live to be 101.

Emma Corrin looks good, but I'm more interested in the actress who takes over as adult Diana in S5.

Just watched Episode 1. They have a scene similar to Baz Luhrman's Romeo and Juliet where Charles and Diana look at each other throught the leaves of a tree.

Both Charles and Di are cast very well. Emma has the huge light eyes with plenty of white showing and a similar nose to Diana, although at 5ft 8 she's not as leggy.

I don't like Gillian A as Thatcher. Her delivery sounds constipated and almost like a parody of MT's accent. Thatcher had a lighter, faster manner of speaking, emphatic rather than turgid.

I'm like gearing up. Rotten Tomatoes gave this season a 94% and everyone is saying that Emma is fantastic as Diana and that Gillian is also very good as Thatcher. They are also saying the Colman really comes into her own this season, with her best scenes going toe to toe with Thatcher. I hope Josh O'Connor gets some awards recognition. He was the standout for me in season 3 and knowing he has that beautiful cock took him next level. Do we have a Crown viewing thread.

I'm only doing this for you r394.

Thank you R394. Let the viewing commence!