I saw "The Crown" Season 4, and have more questions than answers!

1) When they show scenes of the whole royal family gathered at Balmoral or at Buckingham Palace, there are always lots of people with them I cannot place. Are these ladies-in-waiting, or courtiers and their wives, or cousins? or all of the above?

2) Why wouldn’t the Thatchers’ friends or colleagues have explained to them about what to wear at Balmoral since they would assuredly be asked to go hunting? Denis Thatcher’s friend warned him Balmoral would be a constant test, but he didn’t seem to tell him how to prepare.

3) Why would the Queen not take Diana’s phone calls during the early “Fairytale” episode? Didn’t she realize that after the marriage—even if it worked out—she would have to deal frequently with Diana for the rest of her life since Diana would be the Princess of Wales?

4) Who pays to keep Anne’s gigantic estate and stables running?

5) In the “Favourites” episode, the queen seems to barely know her grown children as individuals (except for Charles, whom she dislikes). Did she not have dinners with them when they were home from boarding school when they were growing up? Why does she not know Anne better when we see Anne frequently having dinner with her mother, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret throughout the season?

6) Would a courtier ever speak so rudely to a royal as Charles’s private secretary speaks to Diana on the plane to Australia? I would think, because of his snobbishness about respect for his title and office (which his wife shared with him), Charles he would have fired him on the spot, even if he himself wasn’t fond of Diana.

7) Why by 1988 did Diana not understand that Charles would hate her dance to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” or her performance of a song from “Phantom of the Opera”? How didn’t she understand after seven years of marriage he was a horrible snob about culture?

8) Is Prince Edward really that bitter and vindictive, or were we being led to believe that was just a teenage phase? Since he and his wife Sophie were reportedly big friends of “The Crown” during the early seasons, they must really hate Peter Morgan now.

9) They explain pretty well why the Waleses took so long to separate, but why did Anne take so long to leave her cheating husband? After princess Margaret had divorced Lord Snowdon you would have thought the taboo against divorce would have been gone.

10) This is pure speculation: It seems in retrospect the biggest problems in Diana’s marriage (and also in Fergie’s marriage, which they didn’t show) was that their husbands didn’t want to be around them and so they became unbearably lonely and unhappy. Do you think it was explained after Diana’s death to Charles’s boys that they HAVE to be around their wives more and make them feel loved? Do you think William and Kate will teach that to their own children?

11) Bonus question: do you think Charles realizes now how badly he treated Diana and feels regret about it? He does seem like he became something of a better person after the divorce (and especially after her death).

All valid questions.

I'll add one more:

12) What was the purpose of making Margaret's discovery of the mentally ill cousins an entire episode? It didn't seem to really advance the overall story line at all other than to have great shots of Mustique and and explain that the Queen knew that gay people existed in the 1980s. And who were the couple that seemed to be the hosts in Mustique?

I can answer #12:

The purpose is that Peter Morgan has been clear since even before the show first aired that he wants the entirety of the series not just to spotlight the Queen but also the two people who have been closest to her her entire life, Prince Philip and Princess Margaret. (They have been her best friends and closest confidant(e)s.) Whichever actors play these three are always listed first in the credits because of this.

Prince Philip did not get a big spotlight episode this season, but he had enough big juicy scenes with Diana that he still had much to do. Bargaret would not have had any big scenes had they not done the "Hereditary Principle" episode. It gave us a chance to catch up on what she wa slike during the 80s (miserable because she was falling out of the public spotlight). Moreover, it gave Helena Bonham-Carter an opportunity to show what she can do, and it was the best performance all season, even thought he episode otherwise was not that well written.

In order to attract first-rate actors to those roles, Morgan had to give them spotlight episodes during their two seasons. Almost everyone I have seen agrees the "Moondust" episode was the dullest last season, although Morgan and the other staffers on the show speak proudly of it as if it were the best--but they had to give Tobias Menzies SOMETHING big to do at least one season if he were to accept the role.

The couple at Mustique were Anne's best friends, Colin Tennant (the Baron Glenconner) and his wife Anne. Anne was the one who set Margaret up with Roddy Lllewellyn last season. The Glenconners own the entire island of Mustique and gave Margaret the Jolies Eaux estate as a wedding gift on the occasion of her marriage to Lord Snowdon. They lived right next door, and adored her. Anne recently wrote her memoirs, which were critically praised.

Oh, and two more questions:

#13: At the end of the "Fairytale" episode, Princess Margaret is bemoaning that Charles and Diana will marry the next day and that Charles is in love with another woman, and the Queen mother erupts angrily, "BUT THAT'S THE WAY IT'S ALWAYS WORKED!" But I understood her husband, George VI, was always faithful to her.

#14: The Queen and Margaret were extremely close with their own parents, so they must have valued it greatly. Why then was the Queen so distant from her own children since she had such good models in her own parents? George VI was king yet we saw the first season he always made time for his children.

Thank you R3, that was a great response.

Much appreciated.

BUMP FOR ANSWERS

Re. #10: William and Harry were old enough to see what was going on in the final years of their parents' marriage; I don't think "The Firm" could tell them ANYTHING after Diana's death. W&H told *them* if, when, and to whom they would marry. They didn't need to make their wives feel loved because (1) they would already love the women they married, and (2) they were brought up by their mother to be openly loving and caring.

Re. #11: I think he regrets marrying her in the first place.

It’s partly fiction, OP - not a documentary.

Thrilling when Josh o'connor is in the scenes, he so cute and winning as charles....if only he and diana could have come to some agreement and held on.... the screen comes alive when josh does his thing....in most all the films he is in..

[quote]This is pure speculation: It seems in retrospect the biggest problems in Diana’s marriage (and also in Fergie’s marriage, which they didn’t show) was that their husbands didn’t want to be around them and so they became unbearably lonely and unhappy. Do you think it was explained after Diana’s death to Charles’s boys that they HAVE to be around their wives more and make them feel loved? Do you think William and Kate will teach that to their own children?

William doesn't appear to be around Kate much or like her all that much, either. He's very much his father's son. It wasn't that long ago that a documentary revealed he'd shunned his mother when she did that television interview, because he felt it was so inappropriate for a royal to do such a thing. I believe William was all of 12 at that point, and he'd already been brought up to scold the "outsider" women in the family for not behaving properly.

No one in the BRF would have explained any such thing to Diana's sons.

I dont get it. Diana could not have been that naive, She must have known a bit of what she was getting into. Maybe she was unbalanced, she could have had her bf on the side and enjoyed life...she seemed to be inclined to be 'wretchedly unhappy'.... Was she even happy after the divorce??

She was a teenager, r11.

I also have question and it's for you OP: how did you make it through four seasons of that insipid middlebrow garbage show without killing yourself? And as a followup, do you have any plans to kill yourself now?

R11 I read sources close to her described the doctor she dated post divorce as the love of her life. So she had some happiness it seems.

Question::: the the lad with the hare lip have more than that one brief scene with Margaret where he says he goin to be a priest? I presume he had been her bf of some sort....he got a rave in the New Yorker for his role, but was there just that one brief scene?

R15 he has a scene at the end of the episode after becoming a priest.

OP, you're a doll. Thanks for the thread!

OP, the most important thing to remember is that The Crown is fiction. It's based on real events and real people but it's the product of imagination, not what really happened on how these people really are.

Indeed, fun thread, much thx OP...we appreciate ur effort in this Crown...

YES OMG WE KNOW ITS FICTION...YE GADS

Thrilling when Margaret cusses out Queen Mum etc for putting their cousins in the nuthouse, Not a fan of H B Carter, but bully good scene.

According to books I've read, a great deal of the show is gently massaged or wholly created for more dramatic affect. I wouldn't get too caught up in questions as most were generated by scenes that may not have actually happened. As someone said earlier, it's a drama not a documentary.

If I were a Royal, it would really piss me off to see an event in my life dramatized where I'm made to look like an ass when the event didn't happen or no one was there to witness it.

R4, the QM was not in love with Bertie. She rose up and made the compromise. She had aimed at David but, as dumb as he was, he knew wanted nothing to do with her.

So in the full context of what she said there is not a true analogy to apply to her, because there is no record of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon ever loving anyone, except from duty and proximity to the cachet of the throne, but herself.

The answers to all the questions is that all these people are/were magnificent cunts.

curiouosly, the actress who plays Margaret's shrink, plays Josh O'connor's step mom in Gods own Country, on that farm...

seen her often in Midsummer Murders

The entire season was an exercise in sycophancy for this entitled rich woman. I realize that Thatcher was not beloved, but they went miles out of their way to portray her as a dotard. Maggie Thatcher was a brilliant woman, academically speaking. A horrible PM maybe, but she was nowhere near as stupid as they portray her. They made her some campy drag queen version while smearing on a completely fictional picture that the queen of England is somehow "woke" and frets over all the poors and unemployed people.

That was evident throughout but nowhere was it more absurd than with the Michael Fagan episode where Liz is apparently "touched" by the poor guy who broke into her bedroom, she then proceeds to show her distaste for Thatcher as Thatcher, again in high ridiculous camp, keeps likening her job as a 'hard medicine for the people', as the queen suggests the medicine may be too potent, like deadly chemotherapy. Such utter bullshit. Thatcher did not come from wealth, she was a working-class girl. She was a total conservative and traditionalist and if anything, was blind in her worship of the monarchy.

Sorry for the tangent, it's just so silly and has become as campy and unrealistic as Downton Abbey ever was. I would love to watch an entire season where they're all at Balmoral. I've never actually seen or looked-up photos of it but if it's anything like what they showed this season, it's truly like a fairytale. So beautiful, even with the 24/7 miserable weather.

I dont want this show to ever end, its so damn good...cant it just keep goint to up to today? many more seasons planned ? at least 2 i presume...

Who will play Epstein and Maxwell in the future episode with jolly Prince Andrew? Clooney and Kidman?

You say that, R19, but if you scroll up you’ll see that there are people posting about characters in “The Crown” and people posting about royal family members’ lives, with the line between the two getting blurred.

Charles comes off worst of anyone by a lot.

He doesn't seem to get why Diana might not be happy being a breeding mare and the things that set him off--he doesn't like her taste in music--are the sorts of things a 15 year old decides he doesn't like about a girl he might have a crush on.

He's petulant to everyone and even his family can't stand him, except occasionally Anne.

And Edward, I am sure, set DL hearts aflutter when he referred to Charles as "cunty"

I think Josh plays cunty Charles with a good more sympatica than the real dude actually posesses, alas.

There is no indication to counter, and plenty of rumor behind the scrupulous propriety of the queen to support, the conclusion that the Royals as a group were appalled by the brazen black-and-white cruelty behind Thatcher's Thatcherism. Whatever the enforced callowness of their positions and the entitled naïveté behind the usual "something must be done by someone" ineffectiveness of their convictions, they support the British people and the people of the Commonwealth. Thatcher did not.

She despised those who were similar in their backgrounds who did not rise up like a granite Rock from sheer ambition and cunning. At the same time, the Royals always have been exquisitely sensitive to arrivistes, and to them that means more than Markle's clueless grab for the jewels and the usual social climbing-closeness to anything concerning the family. Thatcher was self-made and as haughty in her own way as the QM, and they recognized in her a formidability they associated with the various autocrats of the century preceding her.

So she was dismissive of the underclass, who the Royals reflexively supported out of noblesse oblige and the pity of the well-placed, an attacker of the welfare system that maintained a kind of underclass quietude (They never have forgotten the French and Russian revolutions), a Voice that spoke directly to Somewhat Our People (the powers of industry and corporate position), and a pissy, proper, thoroughly bourgeois woman - unfamiliar with the determined "down-home and simple" pretensions of the upper classes where you fart and keep silent and don't turn on the faucet to hide the sound of your tinkle - who came across like a pretender to them.

Don't play the "she was abused and misunderstood" game here. Thatcher was vile. That she was other things does not change that fact. Her and Reagan's propaganda that they spoke for the true center of nationalistic pride and tradition led directly to the ineptitudes and offenses of Johnson and Trump, and it is a mere sidestep to see how their mode of power also permitted later strongman rule as the collapsed Soviet sphere refined their methods and adopted much of the same language, if not policies.

Much agree, Thatcher is looked back on as super vile, cut so many programs, etc that they still recovering from all the shit she did. Her asskissing of Reagan was pathetic but showed her colors... I do however enjoy the way Gillian is playing her, bit of dotty humor in her, she comes across as rather eccentric/ nuts....

The series comes to a grinding halt when they focus too much on politics and not personalitys of the family. Some is ok, but more than ten minutes of it and im fast forwarding.. Loving Edward, more of him plz! the cunty remark was like fresh air.

R33, I disagree—I find the politics and history aspects fascinating.

Anyone think its possible the royals had a thing to do with her death? they/charles were very pissed that she seemd happy and strong after she left him, and still garnered so much press.....i dont know. charles was evidently real jealous of the massive crowds/love she got before and after the marriage... plus the queen is....crazy, who knows what she capable of. FOR THE CROWN.....

They are The Firm... they rule with a steel fist. . Frightening people.., they saw Diana as a menace and threat to THE CROWN.. Theyr said to be ruthless, and anyone is expendable to them. Its said there was a sigh of relief in the Family when she was gone...no longer a threat to their power.

Heartbreaking when one sees footage on youtube of his kids at the funeral....maybe they know what really happend at the crash.

Diana's spirit will alwys live ....she alwys be with us.

Watching documentarys bout Prince Charles....what a unfeeling old skag.

What if josh oconner and prince charles swappedd places for a year....and we had a hot king to be scampering round the palace with his fat cock out....

What's touched me the most so far I'd the palace breakin by Michael Fagan. The queen at her peak. Wrenching.

Yes r3 and when Colin Tennant died, he left his estate to one of his staff (usually described as his “manservant”) and not his wife or heir.

Tha Australia trip episode has made me feel so tender towards Diana. Emma is lovely.

Squeeze me, but I'm behind. Did the producers get permission to do this film of the members of the living BRF? If not why not?

Just a little addition to how awful Thatcher was, I remember seeing her on TV once, welcoming Pinochet to her home I think and thanking him for "bringing democracy to Chile". Even Pinochet looked startled at this. She really was vile.

The actor playing Edward is so familiar to me, I've seen him in other things before, will have to look him up.

One of my favourite little touches in the Fagan episode was when he sat on the throne. Anyone would!

Ahh, I just worked it out, Edward is played by the creepy kid from Fleabag.

R45 Pinochet bringing democracy. Puhleeeeze. She was a cynical deluded cunt.

[quote]as Thatcher, again in high ridiculous camp, keeps likening her job as a 'hard medicine for the people',

Yes, you're correct, this is all wrong. The word she used was "harsh" medicine.

[quote]I do however enjoy the way Gillian is playing her, bit of dotty humor in her, she comes across as rather eccentric/ nuts....

It's as if the director said, "Now, Gillian, imagine Margaret Thatcher has had a bit of a stroke . . . or a spot of retardation."

I saw Gillian's interpretation as highlighting how affected Thatcher was - that the voice she used wasn't her real accent etc, she was trying to portray herself differently to how she grew up (which is fascinating in itself as she also seemed so proud of her upbringing too). She's not her authentic self in other words, and it shows in her posture and mannerisms etc. It's an interesting portrayal because it's both been praised and criticised equally from what I can see.

[quote]Diana's spirit will alwys (sic) live ....she alwys (sic) be with us.

R38, yes, always with us.

That's why hauntings by desperate, miserable and confused ghosts are so terrible.

And oh, dear and oh, dear.

Who are the people who host princess Margaret in mustique?

R52, see R3.

Thank you r53

R53 is correct. I have had Ann Glenconners book. "Lady in Waiting" for a while. She is still live, an old aristocrat who have known the Queen and Margaret since they were kids. As the book implies, she was Margaret's Lady in Waiting, but I haven't gotten to the good parts yet but it was a bees seller.

I've just watched season 4 again, more leisurely this time b/c I quickly binged it. I wanted to really watch the Fagen episode again b/c DLers kept going on about it and it still feels like a filler episode. I also thought the Margaret episode could have gone on the chopping block as well. There are too many great stories, but I understand that each of the leads contractually gets one episode and by this point there isn't much for Margaret to do. They also didn't want to do a Charles/Diana overload.I like Margo better with the ensemble this season, saying bitchy things, dropping pearls of wisdom, but I don't think the episode added much to the watching experience.

The characterizations and fictionalizing are interesting. It seems as if a lot of people are digesting the series as a dramatized documentary, and the performances are strongly informing how we feel about the real people.

I was so curious about Michael Fagan and read about him and watched an interview...aside from the breakins themselves and his name, it seems the series made up everything. In real life, he seems to be mentally ill and a drug addict who probably did need to be institutionalized, unlike the way the TV series suggested he was locked up as a punishment. He didn't talk to the queen. There was no profound connection with a commoner; that was invented to serve the story. He was just drunk.

I sympathize a great deal with Prince Charles in the series. He is an asshole, but he's driven to it. He is a human being despite his station in life. Being forced to marry a teenager and spend his life with a woman he didn't connect with (as the show is written) to me is little different than a gay man being forced to marry a woman he doesn't love. He seems to have tried to connect with Diana.

Diana comes across as a sacrificial lamb and there's no way around that, but the eyelash batting and head tilting and totally bizarre VHS tape performance make her really hard to like for me. If I were in Charles's position and had to be with someone I didn't like, and that person were so needy and coy and narcissistic, I would definitely end up like an asshole, too.

The season doesn't really do much for the queen. She's a supporting character. Is that intentional? I always accidentally call the show "The Queen" because I thought it was about the queen, but Thatcher, Diana and Charles definitely are the protagonists here.

I hate the Thatcher character, as intended, and I really admire Anderson's performance. She's perfectly weird and hateable. My father doesn't like her voice because Thatcher was not delicate and weak sounding, but I think the voice suits the characterization well. Thatcher does seem to speak softly and moves like an unthreatening old lady while carrying a battering ram. It makes her a scary character to me. I can imagine her pulling a gun out of her handbag and shooting someone dead with a little head tilt and a grin, and saying, "well, that's done, wot's next on the agenda?"

Agree R56. I hate Thatcher (what I know of her as a old millennial American) but I really loved Anderson's take on her and I very much enjoyed her performance. She was great. I also re-watched Iron Lady this week. Meryl was great, but there is something I like better about Anderson's performance. It's a little more nuanced and she made it her own. Meryl still lurks in her performances. It's the same with Olivia Coleman. I thought she did a great job, but I couldn't get past Olivia Coleman playing the queen or HBC playing Margot like I could with Foy, Smith, Kirby, O'Conner and Corrin. Maybe Coleman was reaching very high star wattage with her Oscar win right before the Crown Season 3 aired. It might be better to be lesser known.

Netflix does a Podcast on The Crown which deep dives into each episode with the writers, actors, directors, stylists weighing in on the nuances.

Apparently a new generation of viewers are hating Charles and Camilla all over again. The hate came in so fast against Camilla in particular that Clarence House had to shut down their twitter feed for a bit. Now they are kicking around whether to do a disclaimer like the Diana episode where they say this is a dramatization of real events, not a documentary.

R57 I think Foy was really good in the role, but I think she had an easier job in that we don't have any idea what the queen was like as a young woman and she had a lot more freedom to create a characterization without having to do as much impersonation.

We all like Foy more as she's pretty. Colman is also terrific.

Coleman has a very weak chin and very dark eyes, which are distinctly her. Again, I think her performance was excellent but she did not feel like the Queen. The Queen is also petite in height and weight. Coleman was very thick this season, but maybe the Queen was bigger in the 80's? Does the Queen have big tits?

[quote] Thrilling when Josh o'connor is in the scenes, he so cute and winning as charles....the screen comes alive when josh does his thing....in most all the films he is in.

OMG!!! hi Josh/r9!!! I loved you in EMMA!!

Josh O'Conner is a DL "triple threat". Did a well regarded gay film, has a massive donkey dick, and is a fantastic actor all around.

Donkey dick? Pic please!

The Queen sees herself as Monarch of the country first and foremost.

Being an involved mother and a sympathetic ear to her daughter in law are not really on the list.

[Quote] I thought she did a great job, but I couldn't get past Olivia Coleman playing the queen

For, it took some time, but Coleman was able to get past being Coleman for me by the middle. Once I got past her, you realize what an amazing actress she is. I really did feel she WAS the queen

And he plays a tortured top. Gods Own Country is like a Brokeback Mountain-ish film about represent sheep farmers. It was actually good.

The episodes aren’t supposed to be telling a story line but are instead moments of the Queen’s life. The Charles and Diana thread is the big exception of course.

The episode of the guy getting into her bedroom and of the retarded cousins were big scandals/news stories. They don’t fall neatly into a plot line, but the show doesn’t look at her reign as following a plot

[quote] Bargaret would not have had any big scenes had they not done the "Hereditary Principle" episode. It

Princess Bargaret is my new, official drag name.

4). As I recall Anne's estate, Gatcombe Park, was a wedding gift from her parents. Big places like that will have a big team, usually run by an Estate Manager, who's basically estate SVP of Operations, reporting to estate CEO, the owner.

6) I cannot imagine a courtier contemplating speaking that rudely to anyone in the Royal Family. Snide or condescending in a vague way, yes, possibly but never as rude as that dude in this series.

[Quote] As I recall Anne's estate, Gatcombe Park, was a wedding gift from her parents. Big places like that will have a big team, usually run by an Estate Manager, who's basically estate SVP of Operations, reporting to estate CEO, the owner.

Shouldn’t it labeled what it is—a gift from the British taxpayer? When have the royals ever done anything that wasn’t financed by the taxpayer? Truly the world’s richest welfare family

[quote] 5) In the “Favourites” episode, the queen seems to barely know her grown children as individuals

This is typical for British parents.

If it makes you feel better, R70. Now back to your envy and class insecurity.

R71, Charles -- the real one -- has, as a middle-aged man, complained publicly about how cold and detached his parents were. I don't think that we've heard the same from any of the other children. Perhaps it's not that the Queen was a bad mother, but that Charles was always needy and unpleasant and blamed everything on everyone else.

1) When they show scenes of the whole royal family gathered at Balmoral or at Buckingham Palace, there are always lots of people with them I cannot place. Are these ladies-in-waiting, or courtiers and their wives, or cousins? or all of the above?

When people refer to the Court they mean the crowd that surrounds the Royal Family. So there are courtiers... staff that keep the Crown operating, ladies in waiting, family who are invited to stay and guests. Balmoral and Sandringham tend to have more guests because there's country sport and activities. Windsor tends to be more official and semi-official and some private entertaining. There can be lunches and things at BP but it's really more of a working base.

2) Why wouldn’t the Thatchers’ friends or colleagues have explained to them about what to wear at Balmoral since they would assuredly be asked to go hunting? Denis Thatcher’s friend warned him Balmoral would be a constant test, but he didn’t seem to tell him how to prepare.

That was total fiction. The Queen doesn't host people for the purpose of making them feel stupid and the Thatchers would have been well briefed on what to have with them. That said, it's still royal bizarro world so you'd still have a good chance of wondering what the fuck was going on around you. But, you'd know what to wear to dinner in any event.

3) Why would the Queen not take Diana’s phone calls during the early “Fairytale” episode? Didn’t she realize that after the marriage—even if it worked out—she would have to deal frequently with Diana for the rest of her life since Diana would be the Princess of Wales?

The Queen is... busy? Access runs through staff. Unless the Queen calls you. Plus I think there was always a generational cultural divide. The Queen Mother was stuck in the Edwardian era of royalty, the Queen somewhere in the middle, Diana on the therapist's couch (with a good understanding of her considerable value to the brand.) So the Queen still seems to operate much of the time in a fairly formal, defined structure around the role of monarch.

4) Who pays to keep Anne’s gigantic estate and stables running?

5) In the “Favourites” episode, the queen seems to barely know her grown children as individuals (except for Charles, whom she dislikes). Did she not have dinners with them when they were home from boarding school when they were growing up? Why does she not know Anne better when we see Anne frequently having dinner with her mother, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret throughout the season?

Again, I think that was more fiction than fact. See the video at link... as family, they are more than strangers, less than besties.

6) Would a courtier ever speak so rudely to a royal as Charles’s private secretary speaks to Diana on the plane to Australia? I would think, because of his snobbishness about respect for his title and office (which his wife shared with him), Charles he would have fired him on the spot, even if he himself wasn’t fond of Diana.

7) Why by 1988 did Diana not understand that Charles would hate her dance to Billy Joel’s “Uptown Girl” or her performance of a song from “Phantom of the Opera”? How didn’t she understand after seven years of marriage he was a horrible snob about culture?

Because Diana was isolated, lonely, impulsive and I'm trying not to say in many ways dim and bonkers.

8) Is Prince Edward really that bitter and vindictive, or were we being led to believe that was just a teenage phase? Since he and his wife Sophie were reportedly big friends of “The Crown” during the early seasons, they must really hate Peter Morgan now.

No idea. I gather he was a bit grand, but has mellowed in later age.

9) They explain pretty well why the Waleses took so long to separate, but why did Anne take so long to leave her cheating husband? After princess Margaret had divorced Lord Snowdon you would have thought the taboo against divorce would have been gone.

Total speculation but Anne was old school and doing her own share of bonking in the side so probably was indifferent to living as they did for a long time. At prior to their separation, Phillips had a kid out of wedlock. She probably just called time after one too many. They separated in 1993 and divorced in 1992 but he continued to live on the estate. 10) This is pure speculation: It seems in retrospect the biggest problems in Diana’s marriage (and also in Fergie’s marriage, which they didn’t show) was that their husbands didn’t want to be around them and so they became unbearably lonely and unhappy. Do you think it was explained after Diana’s death to Charles’s boys that they HAVE to be around their wives more and make them feel loved? Do you think William and Kate will teach that to their own children?

No idea. I think William is plainly living a much different life than his parents did, by design. You just look at it, on the surface anyway, and it appears much more conventional. If the stories of his attraction to the Middleton family dynamic are true, you can see a pattern.

11) Bonus question: do you think Charles realizes now how badly he treated Diana and feels regret about it? He does seem like he became something of a better person after the divorce (and especially after her death).

I don't think Charles is a cruel man but he is a spoiled and clueless one. I'd say he's a third Edwardian royal.... many of his entitlements make perfect sense to him. He and Diana wanted such different things from the marriage and they were such ill suited personalities before you get to their various sins within the marriage. And there was so much spin and so much legend I doubt the truth will ever been known. There are stories there was a resigned contentment and detente between them after the divorce and before she died. That they took tea from time to time at Kensington Palace, amiably. Who knows if it's true? Tina Brown claims Diana said she'd take Charles back in a minute, if he would have had her. Who knows if that is true? What I think is the great shame is she broke away from the system entirely as look how it turned out. And increasingly, if true, it looks like the Bashir interview set off a chain of events that ended with her death.

posted many times in many thread but there seems a relaxed familiarity between them.

[Quote] Denis Thatcher’s friend warned him Balmoral would be a constant test, but he didn’t seem to tell him how to prepare.

That was Malcolm Muggeridge on the phone you ignorant slut.

[quote] That said, it's still royal bizarro world so you'd still have a good chance of wondering what the fuck was going on around you. But, you'd know what to wear to dinner in any event.

I read this as a storytelling device. The servant lady asked Thatcher if she brought any outdoor shoes and Thatcher said no, and the woman snidely scowled and walked away. Later on, someone asked Diana if she brought any outdoor shoes and she said that's all she brought. The whole point to me was to dramatize dichotomies: Thatcher was not at all accustomed to the ways of the royals, was concerned with impressing them and fitting in, and was all work, work work; Diana was totally comfortable with their ways, showing she was indeed an aristocrat almost of their level, and she was there for social reasons and not for any sort of work.

I imagine the writers probably spent a lot of time considering the contrast they were presenting between the young, naive, entitled, rambunctuous, frivolous Diana and the older, serious, ambitious, hardworking, rigid, relatively ordinary Margaret Thatcher. They might have even decided in the end that the queen has a greater appreciation for Thatcher because of her dedication to service, whereas Diana and Charles wallow in their personal grievances.

Diana was very immature for her age when he met her...almost adolescent in her perspective. She was to be a princess and live in a castle with Prince Charming. She was also emotionally needy, and insecure. Charles was emotionally needy and insecure...he was also an angry young man. Now IMO, even though I appreciate that this is not a documentary but a FICTIONAL dramatization...it does show how inconstant Camilla was. She did not love him enough to want to marry him. So he goes into his relationship with Diana feeling the weight of his duty, and CAmilla's rejection.

He wasn't allowed to marry Camilla b/c she was not a virgin and known to get around. It wasn't an option. Diana was only 19 marrying a 30 year old. Especially during that period of development, there is a huge difference in life experience and understanding of the way the world works.

Earlly in their relationship, before Diana, when he first started with her and was smitten, do you think people really sat Camilla down to make sure she understood that there was no way? And Mountbatten clearly encouraged Charles to sow his wild oats, but it seemed in the Series that he & the Queen mother were in agreement about who was suitable and who was not.

Yes she was a teenager but she was also an aristocrat. Christ, people act like she was plucked from the african bush or was beamed down from Mars and placed on the throne. She was a dim, spoiled, and selfish woman.

Claire is cute here.

Wrong season, but who cares?

[quote] Did the producers get permission to do this film of the members of the living BRF? If not why not?

The question is rather: Why would they need to? the royals are public figures and thus no one needs their permission legally to depict them.

[quote]Perhaps it's not that the Queen was a bad mother, but that Charles was always needy and unpleasant and blamed everything on everyone else.

Plus his grandmother fell all over him, as grandmothers often will, so that would have reinforced the contrast.

Diana was from an aristocratic family, but that doesn't mean she liked it. This was one of the problems at least in the fictional world of The Crown that Charles has a hard time comprehending. She's from a country estate much like Highgrove. He didn't understand why she didn't enjoy the country pursuits of the BRF, when that was the environment she grew up in. I read in a real account that Diana actually commented that Highgrove was so small compared to the home she grew up in. Anyway, many people don't like what they grew up in. Maybe she had a different image of what life would be like and the naiveté of a 19 year old thinking she would be different, that she was marrying her prince.

[Quote] the royals are public figures and thus no one needs their permission legally to depict them

Oh really. That's risking litigation.

The other thing to remember is that Diana was from an aristocratic family, but she wasn't "Lady Diana" until she was 14 (when her grandfather died and her father inherited his title of the Earl Spencer and inherited the stately home), and she didn't really live in Althorp until then. In fact, by that time her home was pretty transient: she was by that time spending most of her time in Swiss boarding schools and she would until she finished her secondary education.

[quote] Plus his grandmother fell all over him, as grandmothers often will, so that would have reinforced the contrast.

I think what made things even worse is that the Queen Mother singled him out among all her grandchildren not only because he was the eldest but also because he would become king one day.

Fortunately the Queen doesn't seem to have done that with William. He took tea regularly with her every week at Windsor Castle when he was at Eton, because the castle is just right across the river, and she seems to have done more helping him understand the business of reigning more than she did with prince Charles when he was young (by all accounts). But she did not make him feel either unloved (like she did with Charles) nor like he was the favorite: by all accounts, when the question of who are her favorite grandchildren comes up, the answers given are never William and Harry. I have heard Peter Phillips, Zara Phillips, Princess Beatrice, and Lady Louise Windsor-Mountbatten (currently) all suggested as possibilities--but I think she is truly close with all of them, including William and Harry and Eugenie and James Mountbatten-Windsor.

Does she adore Meghan for her grit.

Am I crowning? Can someone look in there and check?

Would it cause a rift in the space-time continuum if they wrote in Margaret and Tony's grandson, the hunky and thirsty Arthur Chatto, enjoying watching The Crown?

He's cute only because he's young.

R93 most people are cause its easier to be attractive when you are younger

Good , so you agree r94. It's cute he's just far off enough to admit he's watching the Crown. Anyone have seen shows about their distant relatives like Arthur is doing?

Netflix has “no plans” to add a disclaimer to “The Crown” stating that its lavish drama about Britain’s royal family is a work of fiction.

In a statement Saturday, Netflix NFLX, +2.25% said it has always presented the drama, as just that — a drama.

“We have always presented The Crown as a drama — and we have every confidence our members understand it’s a work of fiction that’s broadly based on historical events,” it said.

“As a result we have no plans — and see no need — to add a disclaimer.”

Netflix was urged last week by British Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden to add the disclaimer, in the wake of the broadcast of the drama’s fourth series.

Sound decision in the part of Netflix. The culture secretary was being ridiculous.

I only watched The Crown because my father has gone on and on about it. He enjoyed the first two seasons most because they showed royal protocols and dramatized how the queen's primary job is not to do anything.

I couldn't really get into the first season and didn't finish it. I decided to watch the Diana season because I grew up with her in the picture and figured that might hold my attention more. I told my dad I thought the way she and Charles met was kind of off putting because it was so goofy and it seemed to go way out of the way to make Diana look like a naive, innocent child, even a pure little woodland nymph, and he said that the show is based on documented history and is just showing things how they happened. So some people definitely are watching this show as a documentary. We're American and it's totally inconsequential if my 72-year-old father interprets it as all true, but it does say something about the series's lack of forthrightness in that regard. I don't think a disclaimer like, "This series is based on actual events. Dialogue and personal relationships have been fictionalized for dramatic purposes" would hurt.

Is historical drama. The basic arc is based on historical events. The characters are based in real people. There is dramatic licence taken as is characteristic of the genre.

R98 that "first meeting" of Charles and Diana was completely made up. Fact is, the Royal Children had interacted with the Spencer children most of their respective childhoods/adolescence as Sandringham was near Althorp.

Sorry to burst your bubble.

Reading comprehension isn't your strongpoint, is it, r100?

Thank you, R101. I decided not to reply but I appreciate that you did. :)

This is outstanding

Just finished watching season 4 and now I'm left yearning for more. Do I have to wait a year for season 5?

I keep re-watching Seasons 1&2. They're my favorite. I do love Helena Bonham Carter, though. My most favorite scene is the one of Claire Foy dancing in Ghana. That was priceless.

I agree R104. We binged it in 2 nights, and now it's like "do we have to wait another year?"

I think we have to wait two years due to COVID halting production

I hate you Debbie.

The funny thing is that although I know the show is heavily fictionalised, the portrayal is extremely close to the way I pictured the BRF being behind the scenes - their characteristics, their relationships with each other. The main exceptions are Princess Margaret, whom I think has been portrayed quite flatteringly considering all the tales of her appalling behaviour over the years, and Prince Edward. He was portrayed as very unlikable in this series. I always assumed he was quite a nice bloke, given that he did a much better job than his brothers of keeping himself out of trouble, despite growing up under heavy media scrutiny. He was portrayed as very unlikable in this series. But obviously, we don't really know anything about what these people are like in private.

7) As has been noted elsewhere, it was probably not the dance that bothered Charles as the secrecy. In real life the event was a yearly benefit for Covent Garden and Charles had himself done a comedy routine with Diana the year before.

So he was perfectly fine with her (and himself) performing. But she did not tell him she was appearing that year.

Do you think if the Queen kicks the royal bucket while the show is still in production and/or airing, they'll mention it with a "dedicated to" or "in memory of" credit?

Stop imagining the death of the monarch.

[quote]Under the present law, in Great Britain it is now only treason to "compass or imagine" the Queen's death.

Until Covid is under control, they will freeze Betty & Phil so they can give them a Proper Funeral.

[quote]The actor playing Edward is so familiar to me,

He’s also the son of actress Celia Imrie.