The Crown: season 5

[KillingMeDeftly]

Anyone seen this yet? I'm not quite as convinced by the casting for this season as I was for previous ones but will withhold judgement until I've watched the whole series.

Elizabeth Debicki looks the part as Diana, although I thought Emma Corrin captured her voice better. Dominic West is very flattering casting for Charles but Olivia Williams as Camilla is uncanny. I never thought she looked anything like her but they've made her a dead ringer! Same goes for Jonny Lee Miller as John Major.

It looks like this season will cover events up to and including Diana's Panorama interview.

Strange that James Hewitt didn't feature, given that Diana is on record as saying she was in love with him. And didn't she have her own phone tapping scandal with some guy calling her Squidgy?

Yes, wasn't that James Gilbey?
Lots airbrushed out...

What was Diana thinking giving an interview like that whilst living at the palace

She wasn't thinking.

A bird of prey (a kite?) features quite strongly in one of the early episodes (possibly 'The System' but they blurred together somewhat). Philip keeps looking up at it as if it's significant; is it supposed to symbolise something? I've watched the whole season now and I'm none the wiser.

You've just reminded me we noticed that too!

Yes I noticed the bird - I thought it was a buzzard. No idea of the symbolism - it's a bit pointless if no one is going to get it!
Is it meant to represent vultures circling?

Watched episode 4 last night and found it pretty tedious tbh. I hate the new Anne and Margaret, had no idea who Timothy Dalton was until the story unfolded. Loathe the Queen Mother who has NO resemblance whatsoever to the original. And I don't like HMQ's doddery lady's maid/dresser either. I don't think Angela Kelly was around back then but I'm sure HMQ had someone younger and sharper! I don't expect exact lookalikes but it does help if you can work out who is who as you go along and as PP have said, Philip always had a military bearing which is completely lacking in the current one.

Added to which the story of all the divorces and Margaret going over the Townsend affair was just very tediously done. They could have had so much fun with Fergie and breakfast at Balmoral. And I'd have liked to have had Townsend presented as the sleazy married seducer of teenagers that he was. It was whilst he was in Belgium that he ingratiated himself with the family of his next wife, who was just 14 when he met her, and all the time he and M were supposedly suffering their separation, and M agonising over whether to marry him or not when he returned from Belgium, he had that teenager in his pocket as a back up plan. For all Margaret's pain I don't believe for one minute it was the tragic grand romance for him.

She wanted to tell her side of the story. The Palace and Charles were constantly briefing against her. And the Crown portrayal is wrong. People did not treat the revelations as silly stuff. People were shocked by some of it and it dominated tabloid headlines.

I've copied a timeline I posted re Peter Townsend from another thread.

Marie-Luce fell off her horse at a show and landed at his feet when she was just 14, and somehow after picking her up he ingratiated himself with her family. It must have been very comforting for him after Princess Margaret renounced him to head back to Belgium and have an adoring teenager soothe his bruised ego.

He was a cad.

Timeline:

Peter Townsend DOB 22/11/1914
Appointed temporary equerry to King George V1 1944
Divorce 1952
Air Attaché in Brussels 1953-1956

Princess Margaret DOB 21/8/1930
Statement renouncing Townsend 1955

Marie-Luce Jamagne DOB 1939
Married Townsend 1959 age 20
I think it must have been 1954 when he met Marie-Luce , when he was still involved with Margaret and she was just 14.

At the martin bashir episode what a bustard!!!

Just started watching the new series last night, not sure about the casting for Charles or Phillip yet. My friend was actually the double for Phillip in this series and done all the carriage driving.

And I don't like HMQ's doddery lady's maid/dresser either. I don't think Angela Kelly was around back then but I'm sure HMQ had someone younger and sharper!

Margaret ("BoBo") MacDonald served the Queen for 67 years, first as a nursemaid when Elizabeth was a baby and a growing child and later as the Queen's dresser. She was the only person outside the family who was allowed to call the Queen "Lilibet." She died in her suite at Buckingham Palace in 1993 at the age of 89.

I stand corrected @SenecaFallsRedux

The dresser is probably the best look alike for the series!

I’m two episodes in and so BORED. Is it worth carrying on?

@thebellagio No. There are much better dramas and documentaries of this period.

I was disappointed in this series.
No Fergie in it, just a couple of lines and a picture of the ‘toes’ and then divorce.
Nothing about Diana and James Hewitt, or phone hacking.
So many scandals they could have chosen but didn’t.
Queen mum looks nothing like she was. Princess Margaret looked too healthy.
Jonny lee miller is too sexy for John major.

Imelda Staunton was much better than Olivia Coleman. Although Claire Foy has always been the best queen.

I wondered at the little attention given to Sarah Ferguson too. (Although I think she might be relieved).

And Diana character was made out to be vacuous flirt. She was not without faults, but she was more than that.

The William character was distressed by what was happening around him but it did feel like the writers were placing the reason mostly at Diana’s feet.

However, Did anyone notice the scene with The Queen character, upset, sitting with William (after some scandal) and she couldn’t work the tv remote,
, & what was really happening there, when the William took it from her and got it to work. It was like he was trying to manage her distress as best he could. In that small moment he was also parenting the Queen character it seemed, even though her reasons for having William visit her so regularly were because she was concerned about him.

That scene was there for a reason and I don’t think it was just to show the queen’s distress -as we’d seen that before, more than once.

I think the scene between William and the queen was brilliant.
This is exactly how people of a certain age are with technology.
My dad never got the hang of texts and he was highly intelligent.
And I can quiet imagine him talking the queen into satellite TV (for the racing Chanel. )
I think they always did have a good relationship.
In William we see all the good qualities of his parents.
A strong sense of duty like his father and kindness and compassion from his mother.
What a combination.

I think that it was a real shame they didn’t do an episode on Fergie and Andrew - it really was headline news at the time. But they just haven’t explored Andrew and Fergie at all and so perhaps it would have been weird to devote one to them…

How true were the Martin Bashir ?? Scenes? Was he ever punished for his deceit?

Did Camillas husband really just let her and PC carry on?

Haven’t finished yet

the Queen and Margaret’s accents aren’t right - they’re just “posh” as opposed to the very distinctive accent Clair Foy nailed.

agree, they didn’t show anything like enough of Diana’s charisma and force for good - why the public absolutely adored her.

loved the “Mou Mou” episode - best one for ages.

The joke at the time was that Captain Parker Bowles “laid down his wife for his country”.

I don’t know why they gave so much time to Margaret. By the 90s, she was quite irrelevant and not very popular. The Fergie story was massive at the time.

I don't think Andrew Parker Bowles felt too lonely - wasn't he a notorious womaniser and the inspiration for Rupert Campbell-Black?

I heard that too @KillingMeDeftly.

I don’t think Andrew PB was faithful to Camilla - he broke her heart before they were married because he wouldn’t commit. I think she was obsessed with APB and Prince Charles was obsessed with her. I got the feeling at the time that on his side at least the marriage was quite open by the time she took up with Charles again in the mid 80s. I think he is very charismatic and as PP said an inspiration for Rupert Cambell Black.