The new fifth series weaves together fact and fiction as it examines the travails of the Royal Family in the tumultuous 1990s. It won’t be an easy watch for King Charles III. He can draw comfort, though from the fact that, even before a single episode has aired, tongues are wagging in his defence.
John Major (played in this series by Jonny Lee Miller) is so furious with the show’s blurring of fact and fiction that his office put out the following statement: ‘Sir John has not cooperated in any way with The Crown. Nor has he ever been approached by them to fact-check any script material in this or any other series.
‘Discussions between the monarch and prime minister are entirely private and – for Sir John – will always remain so. But not one of the scenes [depicted] are accurate in any way whatsoever. They are fiction, pure and simple.’
Jemima Khan, who was a close friend of Princess Diana and advised on The Crown for a while, has said: ‘When I realised that [Diana’s] particular storyline would not necessarily be told as respectfully or compassionately as I had hoped, I requested that all my contributions be removed from the series and I declined a credit.’
As Kevin Maher writes in The Times, however: ‘The Crown swims around in the imagery and iconography of the time. But it’s not fact. And it’s certainly not dangerous, seditious or intellectually corrosive.’
Here, separating fact from fiction, we look at the real-life events woven through this series of The Crown.
The Queen’s Annus Horribilis
In series five of The Crown, Imelda Staunton faithfully recreates The Queen’s famous ‘annus horribilis speech’. On November 24, 1992, a lunch was held at The Guildhall to celebrate The Queen’s 40 years on the throne. Her Majesty attended, appearing tired and under the weather. In a croaky-voiced speech, she said it had been an ‘annus horribilis’. She was referring to the fact that, in that year, three of her four children’s marriages collapsed, a fire caused £36 million worth of damage to Windsor Castle, and the Royal Family was rarely out of the headlines.
Prince Charles’s Infidelity Interview
Dominic West, playing Prince Charles, portrays this bombshell moment in the new series of The Crown. In 1994, the Prince of Wales, as he was at the time, admitted to adultery in a television interview with Jonathan Dimbleby. It was the first time he had ever spoken publicly about his private life and the divorce of the Prince and Princess of Wales, who were separated at the time, became inevitable afterwards.
The Night Of The Revenge Dress
The night Charles’s interview was broadcast, Diana pitched up at a fundraising dinner at The Serpentine Gallery looking a million dollars in an unforgettable black silk dress. Elizabeth Debicki retreads this path in series five of The Crown. Photographers say Diana’s arrival at the party lasted only a matter of seconds, but it caused a global stir. The symbolic dress, by Christina Stambolian, raised £39,098 at auction in July 1997.
The Duke Of Edinburgh’s Carriage-Driving Chum
This series speculates on the nature of Prince Philip’s relationship with his beautiful carriage-driving friend, Penny Knatchbull (who is played by Natasha McElhone). She was thirty years his junior, but they had several interests in common (and she was married to Prince Philip’s godson). The Sunday Times says: ‘Their friendship endured – Penny, now 69, was the only non-royal to attend Philip’s funeral service at Windsor Castle when it was scaled back because of Covid restrictions.’
The Dodi Al Fayed Months
As far as we know, playboy film producer Dodi Al Fayed and Diana, Princess of Wales enjoyed a brief fling in 1997 that had only begun weeks before their fatal car crash in Paris. Certainly, they were photographed together on his family’s yacht that summer. In this series, Khalid Abdalla plays the billionaire’s son. The Sunday Times says that he and Salim Daw (Mohammed Al Fayed) ‘are terrific, breathing life into figures portrayed so often as pantomime villains’.
By Becky Ladenburg
November 2022
