TV review: The Crown. Season 6, Episode 10: Sleep, Dearie Sleep

The Queen (Imelda Staunton). In the end, even God couldn’t save her

It’s the end of an era.

After seven years, six series and sixty episodes, Netflix’s The Crown has finally come to an end. Rather than going right up to the present and allowing us to see the cast watching their own early lives being dramatized on TV, the story concludes in 2005, with Charles’s relatively low-key wedding to the love of his life, Camilla Parker-Bowles (Dominic West and Olivia Williams). Had Charles followed his instincts and done this about thirty years earlier, one imagines The Crown would have only needed four series, rather than six. But we’ll never know now, will we?

As it is, Season Six has contained more than its fair share of genuinely crazy moments, notably some cameo appearances from the ghosts of Diana and Dodi Fayed (Elizabeth Debicki and Khalid Abdalla) following their deaths in the 1997 Paris road crash. And guess what? There are more ghosts in this episode (sort of) as the eighty-year-old Queen (Imelda Staunton) is haunted by the spirits of her younger self. We thus see the monarch engaging in conversation with her middle-aged Elizabeth (a welcome return visit to The Crown for Olivia Colman) and later, the younger version from the dawn of her reign (again, good to see Claire Foy from the first two series again) The Queen even gets a quick salute from her teenaged self, played by young Claire Foy lookalike, Viola Prettejohn, who played the teenaged Princess Elizabeth in the wartime scenes of the recent Ritz episode.

The three faces of Queendom: maiden, mother and er…crone

The final Crown ends with Imelda’s Queen walking boldly forward (chess fans will know, Queens can go as far as they like in any direction, as long as its in a straight line) with Colman and Foy following her on either side. It’s a bit like one of those old Doctor Who episodes where all the Doctors (e.g. Hartnell, Troughton and Pertwee) get to meet up in the Tardis simultaneously. Thankfully, unlike Doctor Who, the Queen never had to undergo the awkward and painful process of ‘regeneration’ as she morphed from one actress into another. As her first Prince Philip (Doctor Who Number 11, Matt Smith) could have told her, this would have been no picnic.

Anyway, the purpose of resurrecting these earlier models of the QE2 is to allow us to see the Queen airing her private thoughts as she contemplates announcing her abdication during a speech at Charles’s wedding. Did you know the Queen came very close to doing this? Chances are, you didn’t, simply because it never happened. There is no real evidence that the Queen ever considered abdicating at any point ever. Even if she had done, it’s hardly likely she would have announced her decision on the day of Charles’s wedding. Even in non-royal circles announcing big news during somebody’s else’s wedding ceremony is considered a breach of etiquette.

In this version, the Queen is contemplating abdication as a result of feelings of mortality generated by news of the continuing preparation of Operation London Bridge: the long-running plans for her own state funeral. These plans were first prepared in the Sixties, but were, of course, not put into practice until 2022. By choosing to stay on, the Queen realises she is effectively condemning Britons in the 21^st century to nearly twenty more years of monarchy under one very old Queen followed by decades of kingship under several old men. Not that there’s ever any real drama generated over whether the Queen is going to stand down in 2005 or not. Obviously, she didn’t! Even The Crown would never get away with changing history that much.

Instead, the Queen throws away the handwritten bit of paper announcing her retirement on the spur of the moment. She then launches into a surprisingly irreverent speech reminiscent of a stand-up comedy routine. She only just stops short of taking the piss out of Harry (Luther Ford) for dressing up as a Nazi or joking that she was, in fact, guilty of killing Diana.

The Crown thus ends with the series, like perhaps the nation, much weaker at the end than it was at the start. Charles is at least happy to be finally married to Camilla. William (Ed McVey) is going out with Cate (Meg Bellamy) after seeing her wearing a see-through dress at a fashion show. Wills and Harry are already feuding. Tony Blair (Bertie Carvel), who was recently so popular that the Queen (according to The Crown) envied him to the extent that she was having bizarre dreams in which the founder of New Labour replaced her as monarch, is now unpopular again thanks to the Iraq War. In fact, this isn’t quite true: Blair did win a substantial General Election victory in 2005 and was still fairly popular when he himself stood down two years later. Perhaps writer Peter Morgan feels as if he has to make amends for giving Blair (then played by Michael Sheen) such an easy ride in his screenplay for Stephen Frears’s 2006 film, The Queen. We are spared dramatized versions of Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson or Truss.

We last see the Queen (Staunton) walking slowly across an empty room, then disappearing through a door, a scene presumably intended to illustrate the final seventeen years of her reign followed by her death. So ends The Crown. Despite some great performances and many fine moments, however, unlike the reign of the Queen herself, in the end, most people would probably judge the series to have fallen some way short of genuine greatness.

We three Queens: Staunton, Colman and Foy

TV review: The Crown. Season 6. Episode 4: Aftermath

No time to Di: Ghost Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) haunts the Queen (Imelda Staunton).

Woo-ooh! Watch out everyone! Halloween may have been and gone, but there are two ACTUAL GHOSTS in this episode. Despite being dispatched in the last episode, the spirits of Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) both briefly return to the mortal realm to haunt their relatives. Di visits her grief-stricken ex-husband, Prince Charles (Dominic West) and the Queen (Imelda Staunton) while Dodi pops in on his dad, Mohamed Al-Fayed (Salim Daw).

One wonders if the “psychic” who the then still-living Diana reportedly visited in Episode 2 had anything to do with this? Can we expect to see more phantoms in The Crown’s future? Perhaps a return visit from John Lithgow’s Churchill or from the Queen’s father, George VI (Jared Harris)?Perhaps Charles I? Or Henry VIII? I doubt it.

Of course, they’re presumably not really supposed to be ghosts. If they were everyone would have been a little bit more surprised when they first materialised. For example, when the spectral Diana introduces herself mid-flight with a playful “ta-da!”, Charles would presumably have tried to jump off the plane. It is a dramatic device, albeit a thoroughly silly one which doesn’t work at all.

In truth, this is inevitably a very sombre episode. Di and Dodi are dead and The Crown is quite unstinting in showing Charles and Al-Fayed’s unrestrained grief as they learn the shocking news from Paris. Despite having so recently been engaged in a PR war with his ex-wife, Charles (in this, at least) now does an abrupt volte-face and stands up for the rights of Diana and their two children. The Queen and Philip’s (Jonathan Pryce) stubborn determination to keep buggering on as if nothing has changed, seems positively cold-hearted in comparison. The ghostly Diana plays a crucial role in softening up the Queen’s official response to the tragedy.

We also see Al-Fayed in full grief mode, an element that was entirely absent from Peter Morgan’s last journey into this territory when he wrote 2006’s acclaimed film, The Queen. Al-Fayed is not yet the crazed conspiracy theorist he will become. We get to see Imelda Staunton replicating the Queen’s actual TV broadcast from the time, something Helen Mirren did in the 2006 film. It would be interesting to see the three versions: the late Queen’s, Mirren’s and Staunton’s played side by side.

We also get some nonsense about the young Prince William (Rufus Kampa) going missing for fourteen hours following his mother’s death: an untrue story which goes precisely nowhere (“Have you seen William?…oh, there he is”).

It’s hard to imagine Peter Morgan would have got away with portraying Diana and Dodi as ghosts in the 2006 Helen Mirren film. Guess what? He doesn’t really get away with it here either.

Windsor change: The Queen (Imelda Staunton) changes tack.

TV review: The Crown. Season 6. Episode 1: Persona Non Grata

Under pressure: Diana (Elizabeth Debicki)

The Crown is back!

But while always a big event, the arrival of this, the sixth and final series in the royal saga has received a somewhat more muted media reaction than usual. This is partly, no doubt, because of the death of the actual real-life Queen last year. In truth, however, Imelda Staunton’s monarch is no longer the star of the show anyway, at least, in these first four episodes (the final six will be released on December 14th). The focus for now is mostly on the recently divorced Princess Diana and her activities during her final fateful summer of 1997.

We all know where this leading, of course. As if anyone needed reminding, a short prelude depicts the famous Parisian car crash from the perspective of a late night French dogwalker who calls the emergency services after witnessing the limo speeding into the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, swiftly followed by an inevitable, sickening thud.

The next three episodes then go back to show us Diana’s final weeks, notably her blossoming romance with the equally doomed Dodi Fayed (Khalid Abdalla) as they holiday in Saint-Tropez. Not everything is as idyllic as it might first appear, however. For one thing, Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) is already being hounded by the paparazzi. For another, Dodi’s motives for wooing Di seem questionable as he’s been put up to it by his powerful, super-rich father, Mohamed Al-Fayed (Salim Daw). Al-Fayed takes an obsessive, prurient interest in his son’s progress with the Princess. Ultimately, his constant interference completely ruins Dodi’s relationship with his beautiful American fiancée, model, Kelly Fisher (Erin Richards).

Al-Fayed is, incidentally, another figure who has died recently in real-life, aged 94 at the end of August, twenty-six years almost to the day after the accident which killed his son.

Meanwhile, Prince Charles (Dominic West) is in a strop because he can’t get anyone to attend Camilla’s (Olivia Williams) 50th birthday party. While his perpetually sozzled aunt, Princess Margaret (Lesley Manville) is happy to party anywhere, both the Queen and Philip (Jonathan Pryce) basically explain they are staying in to wash their hair that night as neither want to be seen to formally endorse the future king’s relationship with the Prince’s mistress. When the party does happen it is completely overshadowed by newspaper coverage of his ex-wife’s holiday antics.

It’s all a bit sad really and a bit of a shame that in a series which is dedicated to covering the Queen’s seventy-year reign in 54 episodes, we get at least five episodes devoted to the year 1997 alone. Diana’s death was undeniably a major event, but it was entirely an accident which could easily have been averted had events transpired differently on the night itself. Her romance with Dodi was also very brief and may well have ended before too long, had the couple survived.

With these points in mind, one wonders if it was really necessary to cover the details of Diana and Dodi’s final days in such detail?

Doomed romance: Dodi (Khalid Abdalla) and Diana (Elizabeth Debicki)

TV review: The Crown. Season 5. Episode 5: The Way Ahead

Remember, remember: Charles and Camilla (Dominic West and Olivia Williams) enjoy the fireworks

John Major is the first living British prime minister to have been portrayed in The Crown and in real life, the man Major is not happy about it. A spokesman for the 79-year-old former premier has attacked the show as “a barrel-load of nonsense peddled for no other reason than to provide maximum – and entirely false – dramatic impact.”

The thought of a fully enraged elderly Major should be enough in itself to make even the toughest of the tough quake in terror. But, in all seriousness, Major’s anger seems unwarranted. His portrayal by Jonny Lee Miller is sympathetic. He is depicted as the loyalist of the loyal. Imelda Staunton’s Queen even praises him for his years of service. What is more, the many problems of his troubled administration are largely glossed over. Unlike Macmillan (Anton Lesser) whose wife’s long affair with another politician, Lord Boothby was shown in Season 2, Major’s 1980s affair with colleague, Edwina Currie is never even hinted at. In truth, Major’s fury seems to have been inspired by newspaper claims that he is shown actively plotting with Prince Charles (Dominic West) against the Queen, something which never happens in the series at all.

His premiership did, however, coincide with many of the most troubled moments of the Queen’s reign. In this episode, for example, we get to relive the embarrassment of ‘Tampongate’ in which a sexually charged private phone conversation between Charles and Camilla (Olivia Williams) from 1989 in which the future King fantasised about being a tampon inside the future Queen Consort is released in the 1990s.

Surprisingly, this conversation is reproduced in a way which makes it less excruciating than you might expect. Looking back, we can see now that they were just two fortysomethings in love. They were very unlucky indeed that their phone chat is intercepted by an amateur radio ham who records it and takes it to the tabloids after recognising Charles’s distinctive voice.

Charles actually comes across well for much of this episode, his attitudes and outlook on many issues in the 1990s now looking way ahead of their time. He is even shown breakdancing at one point something Dominic West naturally looks much cooler doing than the real Charles ever did. He comes across less well in his interview with Jonathan Dimbleby claiming he was faithful “until it became obvious that the marriage couldn’t be saved.”

Diana (Elizabeth Debicki), now separated, knows this account is less than honest. Stealthily, she considers her counter move.

TV review: The Crown. Season 5. Episode 4: Annus Horribilis

Stand down Margaret: The Princess (Lesley Manville) faces up to the truth

Did you know the Queen’s sister once very nearly married James Bond?

Well, okay, that didn’t exactly happen. But in this episode, the Queen’s younger sister, Princess Margaret (the brilliant Lesley Manville) meets up with her first love, retired equerry, Group Captain Peter Townsend. And he’s now played by Timothy Dalton, who once famously played 007. You see what I mean? Dalton was, in fact, still officially cast as James Bond in 1992 the very year this episode was set. For all that matters.

It’s all quite poignant. As depicted in The Crown: Season 1, the official refusal to allow the young Princess and the divorced Group Captain (then played by Vanessa Kirby and Coupling star Ben Miles: both seen here in flashback) effectively wrecked poor old Margaret’s life. He went on to marry someone else, happily and successfully. She married too: disastrously, leaving her bitter, boozy and resentful. However, here they get to meet one final time. This apparently did happen but not in quite the way it happens here. Margaret is left shaken not stirred as he woos the living daylights out of her (apologies).

There’s some more dramatic licence here: we see Townsend listening to Margaret being interviewed by Roy Plomley on Desert Island Discs as if this occurred, like the rest of the episode in 1992. In fact, as all true BBC Radio 4 fans will know, that particular episode was broadcast in 1981. Plomley died in 1985, in fact, so it is rather surprising to see him still alive seven years’ later.

Anyway, it becomes clear there is still some lingering tension between the Queen (Imelda Staunton) and Margaret over the issue although this all seems to be resolved by the end of the episode. Lesley Manville is great as ever as Margaret. You have to wonder if she was ever considered as a possible option to play the Queen herself

Talking of which, the Queen has a lot on her plate this time. Royal divorces are like buses. You wait ages for one and then three come along at once. First, Anne (Claudia Harrison) wants to remarry after her divorce. This provokes anguished complaint from Margaret. If she can do it, why couldn’t I? In truth, the situations are not actually identical. Anne is the daughter of the Queen not her sister. Anne is also the divorced one in this instance, not her proposed husband. Margaret has also now been permitted to get divorced herself and could presumably remarry if she wished. Margaret also was given the option of marrying Townsend if she was prepared to relinquish all claims on the throne. That said, none of these points are brought up here and Margaret is certainly justified in feeling aggrieved. For the record, Anne’s second marriage to Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence has now lasted for thirty years. It is the most enduring of any of the six marriages entered into by the children of the late Queen Elizabeth II.

Next up, the now disgraced Prince Andrew (James Murray) announces his marriage to the toe-sucking Fergie is over (no, not the football manager or the one from the Black Eyed Peas). Worst of all, the once and future king, Charles (Dominic West) confirms his marriage is over too. Then Windsor Castle burns down. If the 1990s was the worst decade of the Queen’s reign, then 1992 was the worst year. Perhaps of her entire life.

This prompts the famous Annus Horribilis speech in which the Queen admits that 1992’s been as Francis of Assisi might have put it “a complete and utter shitshow”. The Queen Mother (Marion Bailey) objects to the speech: in a touching scene Philip (Jonathan Pryce) and the Queen defend each other. None of the conversation apparently really happened. It doesn’t really matter: the speech undeniably marked a shift away from the stiff upper lipped attitudes of the past towards the “I feel your pain” approach of the post-Diana era.

TV review: The Crown. Season 5. Episode 3: Mou Mou

It’s that man again: Di (Elizabeth Debicki) meets Mohamed Al-Fayed (Salim Daw)

One of the fun things about The Crown is that you never know when or where each episode is going to start from. You would sort of expect each show is going to start with a caption reading ‘Buckingham Palace, 1991’ or something predictable like that. But, in practice, it’s just as likely to read, ‘Berlin, 1940,’ ‘Amsterdam, 1664,’ or ‘The Planet Osios IV, Alpha Centauri, 8162.’ (I’m exaggerating a little here. Very few episodes of The Crown are actually set in Deep Space).

This time, we open in Alexandria, Egypt, in 1946. Where is this heading? Alex Jennings makes a welcome return cameo appearance as a visiting middle-aged Duke of Windsor before we realise this is The Crown’s introduction to the crazy world of the Al-Fayed family. We witness the birth of Dodi and as the years roll by, we witness his over-sexed father Mohamed’s attempts to establish himself in British society and the resistance he encounters due to a combination of genuine doubts about his character and the usual snobbery and racism. We see him (well played by Salim Daw) buying Harrods and his and Dodi’s (Khalid Abdalla) often overlooked successes within the British film industry. According to this, they actually watched the filming of the famous opening of Chariots of Fire, a sequence once memorably described by Roddy Doyle as “a bunch of tossers running across a beach.”

We also learn of Mohamed’s apparent obsession with the by then deceased ex-King Edward VIII. He employs Sydney Johnson (Jude Akuwudike) a former black valet to the onetime monarch and see him buy Edward and Wallis’s former home. All true enough apparently. In real life, Mohamed Al-Fayed is now 93. I wonder what he makes of all this?

Anyway, later he attempts to meet the Queen (Imelda Staunton) at a racecourse but is charmed by Princess Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) instead. He likes to be called “Mou Mou.” Dodi meets her briefly for the first time too although it’s not quite the thunderbolt moment we might have expected. Dodi says little to her and Di doesn’t really seem to notice him. This is the only time they meet during this series of The Crown.

TV review: The Crown. Season 5. Episode 2: The System

Di another day: The Princess (Elizabeth Debicki) spills the beans.

Bad news for fans of Imelda Staunton’s Queen Elizabeth II: she’s barely in this episode at all, appearing only fairly briefly at the start and again towards the end. She is, for the most part, Queen Unseen. Queen but not heard.

Never mind: instead, we get lots about Diana (Elizabeth Debicki) and old Phillip (Jonathan Pryce). Diana is hanging out a lot with her fried, Dr. James Colhurst (Oliver Chris) who acts as an intermediary between her and author, Andrew Morton (Andrew Steele) as she provides first hand material for his sensational warts-and-all biography of her, Diana: Her True Story.

The Duke of Edinburgh, meanwhile, is indulging his love of carriage-riding with family friend, Lady Penny Knatchbull (Truman Show actress, Natascha McElhone). Yes, you heard me: carriage riding. Apparently, this isn’t just something people in 1820 used to do, but a genuine hobby which rich people like to do today: restoring and then riding about in old carriages. Each to their own, I suppose.

But hang on a mo! Lady Penny is much younger than the old Duke and very attractive. Does the Queen not mind about this? Well, fear not, it all seems to be perfectly innocent. The two do achieve a genuine sense of intimacy, but not in a rude way. In a sudden burst of story, Penny does reveal to Philip what Di’s been up to. Philip is annoyed and arranges to meet with Diana and gives her a friendly warning. Don’t rock the boat, he says. And, for once, he doesn’t mean the Royal Yacht, Britannia.

But it’s too late to cancel the book now and anyway Diana doesn’t want to. This seems to mark the point where Diana goes rogue.

TV review: The Crown. Season 5. Episode 1: Queen Victoria Syndrome

Live and let Di: The Prince and Princess (Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki) go on fighting the Cold War.

It’s 1991 and the political situation is very, very different from how it is today, in November 2022.

Hard as it is to imagine now but back in 1991, Britain had been under the same Conservative government for twelve long years. I know, right? With the economy slipping into economic recession, the Tories had forced out their unpopular woman leader and replaced her with the man who until recently had been Chancellor of the Exchequer. The new Prime Minister was the youngest one so far of the entire century. So, as you can see: nothing like the current state of affairs at all.

But never mind all that, where’s the Queen?

Well, the series opens with a supposed bit of newsreel footage showing the Queen attending a ceremony marking the commissioning of the Royal Yacht Britannia back in 1957. Older readers will remember that for the first decade of her reign, the young Queen was played by the actress Claire Foy and this is the case here. The flashback ends with Foy’s Queen staring, horrified into the middle distance as if she has foreseen the images which appear in the next scene where she has transformed into Imelda Staunton. We first see Staunton’s monarch enduring the banal necessities of a routine medical examination. We are now in the 1990s and like Staunton herself, the sovereign is now supposed to be in her mid-sixties.

Of course, we already know the real problem isn’t with the Queen herself (spoiler alert: she lives for another 31 years) but with her children, three of whom are about to divorce, almost simultaneously. A frisky Princess Anne (Claudia Harrison) is already eyeing up the local talent while Charles (Dominic West) is doing his best to preserve the public face of his desperately unhappy marriage to the much-loved Princess Diana. Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki does a great job of replacing the also excellent Emma Corrin in this challenging role, often displaying a remarkable physical resemblance to the late Princess of Wales. But by this point, the marriage is clearly already doomed, wrecked by Charles’s affair with Camilla and by the fact they obviously have absolutely nothing in common.

The onetime Trainspotting actor, Jonny Lee Miller plays Britain’s Prime Minister, John Major. Major mostly sits quietly while lots of people talk at him in this episode. It is not really made clear whether this is because he is supposed to be naturally inscrutable or because he is keeping quiet because he senses he is out of his depth. Prince Charles, in this, seems to be plotting to encourage the Queen to abdicate and waffles vaguely and attempting to draw vague parallels with the decision to replace the ageing sixty-something Thatcher with the male forty-something Major. Princess Margaret (Lesley Manville) typically attempts to embarrass Major socially. Diana and the Queen are more polite to him. Sadly, there is no repeat of the scene in the Chris Morris comedy, The Day Today, in which the Queen and Major have a full-blown fight during their weekly audience together.

TV review: The Crown. Season 5: Preview

1991…

The story so far: Against all the odds, ordinary London girl and granddaughter of King George V, Elizabeth Windsor has risen to become Her Royal Highness, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. Having seen off many perils during her first forty years on the throne including her wayward, drunken sister, Margaret (Vanessa Kirby/Helena Bonham Carter/Lesley Manville), unstable palace intruder, Michael Fagan (Tom Brooke) and non-U-turning, ex-Europhile, Iron Lady, Great She Elephant, Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson), she now faces her greatest enemy of all: HER OWN CHILDREN. Can the Queen resolve the mystery of the Annus Horribilis? Can this series avoid overlapping with the storyline of the film, The Queen, also written by Peter Morgan nearly twenty years ago? And can the Queen work out why after nearly thirty years as Olivia Colman, she has now suddenly turned into Imelda Staunton? For the answers, read on…

Drama Queen: Actress Imelda Staunton takes over the reign/reins…

The Crown: Harold Wilson

Harold Wilson (1964-70, 1974-76)

Played by: Jason Watkins (Series 3)

Wilson was the first Labour Prime Minister to take office during the Queen’s reign and as in Peter Morgan’s earlier play, The Audience, the two are shown approaching each other somewhat warily after Wilson wins power in 1964.

The Queen (now played by Olivia Colman) is wary of the new socialist PM, having been tipped off by Prince Philip (Tobias Menzies) that he might be a Soviet agent. In reality, this was definitely untrue although this was certainly a prevalent rumour in right-wing circles at the time and to some extent still is. So it’s quite likely the Queen would have heard such rumours if not from Philip, then someone else.

Wilson is initially presented as being slightly chippy and with a social inferiority complex about meeting the monarch.

A special relationship: In time, however, this initial mutual caution transforms into something approaching a warm friendship. It is generally thought Wilson was one of the Queen’s favourite Prime Ministers and this is reflected in the series. She certainly never warms to the stubborn stuffy Edward Heath (Michael Maloney) whose unhappy spell in Downing Street interrupts Wilson’s period in office and is sorry to see Wilson go when he finally retires for good. For his own part, he essentially becomes a royalist, keeping republican elements within his own cabinet such as Barbara Castle and Anthony Wedgewood-Benn in check.

Although not physically very like Wilson, Jason Watkins brilliant captures Wilson’s distinctive voice (think Michael Parkinson) and mannerisms. A man who smokes a pipe in public, but who prefers a cigar in private, Wilson is acutely aware of the growing importance of image in the TV age and advises the slightly younger monarch accordingly. He has transformed himself from a highly intelligent but dry numbers man into a charismatic and witty, dynamic working-class hero for the 1960s in order to win power. On screen, he evolves from the greying 1960s Wilson into the snowy-haired Wilson of the 1970s very effectively.

Coup warning?: A slightly paranoid Wilson is shown phoning the Queen during her world tour to warn her that Lord Mountbatten (Charles Dance) might be becoming involved in a plot to mount a right-wing coup against him. This isn’t far off the mark: Mountbatten was approached by plotters in the late 1960s and the Queen may or may not have discussed it with Wilson: we do not know. This did not coincide with her tour though.

Resignation reasons: The political world was stunned by Wilson’s sudden seemingly inexplicable resignation in 1976. It is now widely acknowledged Wilson who had a famously good memory in his heyday, probably retired when he did as he sensed he was beginning to suffer from what would turn out to be Alzheimer’s. He was already increasingly paranoid and the effects of alcoholism (not really suggested here) were dimming his abilities further. In The Crown, Wilson is shown very specifically citing Alzheimer’s as the reason for his resignation.

Book review: James Callaghan – An Underrated Prime Minister?

James Callaghan is a prime minister who tends to be overlooked by history.

The new series of The Crown doesn’t even mention him at all. skipping straight from Jason Watkins’ Harold Wilson to Gillian Anderson’s Margaret Thatcher. Peter Morgan’s earlier play, The Audience, which inspired The Crown made a joke of how easy it was to forget him, featuring a scene in which both Helen Mirren’s elderly Queen and her youngest prime minister, David Cameron both repeatedly missed him out when attempting to remember everyone who had been in Downing Street during her long reign.

Callaghan, an ardent royalist and prime minister for three years between 1976 and 1979, would have been sad to see himself remembered like this. Or rather, not remembered.

It’s not just Peter Morgan though. I myself was born under Callaghan’s premiership but understandably have no memory of it: I was not yet two-and-a-half when he left office. But as a teenager, I’d notice blank looks whenever I brought up Callaghan during political discussions with my school friends. The same people had all heard of Harold Wilson and Edward Heath. But quite a few had never heard of Callaghan at all.

There are quite a few interesting facts about Callaghan. He was one of only eight British prime ministers not to go to university (a list which includes Disraeli, Lloyd George and Churchill). He was married longer than any other prime minister, his wife Audrey, who he married in 1939, died in March 2005. Callaghan himself, died just 11 days later, one day before his 93rd birthday. He was also the longest-lived prime minister ever, surpassing Harold Macmillan’s record, by just 39 days.

‘Sunny Jim’ was also the only person to have held all of the great offices of state. He was Chancellor (1964-67), Home Secretary (1967-70), Foreign Secretary (1974-76) and Prime Minister (1976-79). Some people hold just one of these positions (e.g. Wilson, Heath, Thatcher, Blair, Cameron – all just PM), some two (Eden – Foreign Sec and PM, Brown – Chancellor and PM, Jack Straw – Foreign Sec and Home Sec, May – Home Sec and PM, Johnson – Foreign Sec and PM) and others three (Churchill – all except Foreign Sec, Rab Butler – all except PM, Macmillan – all except Home Sec, Major – all except Home Sec). But only Callaghan has held all four.

This book of essays is about Callaghan’s record as Prime Minister. Generally, his tenure tends not to be remembered fondly, largely because it ended badly. In late 1978, with Labour ahead in the polls, he held back from calling a General Election. His caution was actually quite understandable in the circumstances, but his decision was to prove disastrous. The next few months would witness a total breakdown in relations between the unions and the government culminating in the catastrophic ‘Winter of Discontent.’ From that point on, a Conservative election win for Margaret Thatcher was inevitable. Callaghan’s image was further harmed by TV images of him appearing complacent and out of touch when interviewed during the strikes after returning with a tan after attending a summit in the Caribbean. The appearance inspired the famous Sun headline, ‘Crisis? What crisis?’ Callaghan never used those exact words but they certainly conveyed the essence of his reaction (he did say, “I don’t accept that there is mounting chaos”). In the end, the government fell as a result of a government defeat in the Commons, not due to an election called at a time of Callaghan’s own choosing. Mrs Thatcher and the Tories won with a majority of more than forty. Memories of the Winter of Discontent would poison Labour’s electoral prospects throughout their eighteen subsequent years in opposition.

Against some pretty stiff competition, Callaghan’s election postponement must rank high on any list of the greatest missed political opportunities of all time.

Putting these disasters to one side, however (if that’s possible), Callaghan’s premiership was up until late 1978, pretty successful. He inherited a dire economic situation from Harold Wilson and was thrown into the IMF Crisis of 1976 almost immediately afterwards. But he and his Chancellor, Denis Healey thereafter handled the economy pretty well. The economy was recovering and unemployment was falling when Labour left office.

In an incredibly fractious situation, he also did very well to manage rising tensions within his own party and cabinet. Despite clashes between Right and Left and the sometimes mischievous activities of Tony Benn, there were, almost uniquely, no major cabinet resignations during his premiership.

Finally, Callaghan was consistently popular and always preferred by most to his sometimes shrill younger opponent, Margaret Thatcher. It is little wonder he came so close to re-election in the autumn of 1978.

Jameps Callaghan – An Underrated Prime Minister? Edited by: Kevin Hickson and Jasper Miles. Published by: Biteback.

TV review: The Crown. Season 4, Episode 10: War

And so, Series 4 of The Crown comes to an end, having guided us through the period from 1977 to 1990.

We are still talking about events a very long time ago: for example, the 30^th anniversary of the fall of Margaret Thatcher (on November 22^nd 1990) occurred exactly a week after this series fell onto Netflix. The world of 1990 was still a world, lest we forget, where mobile phones were still largely the preserve of a few yuppies shouting into them on trains and such concepts as the internet, Netflix and the actress Gillian Anderson either didn’t exist or were entirely unknown to most people.

Despite these facts, perhaps it’s just because of my age, but 1990 seems much, much more like the world we know today than 1977 did. Or perhaps I should amend that? 1990 feels much more like the world we knew up until a year ago, than 1977 did.

At any rate, this episode marks the end of an era. After two series, twenty episodes and twenty-six years of time passing on screen, this episode sees the end of Olivia Colman’s reign as the second of The Crown’s second screen Queen Elizabeths. The first, Claire Foy, made a welcome cameo at the start of Episode 8 in a 1940s flashback. Elizabeth the Third, Imelda Staunton will assume her duties taking the Queen fully into old age in Seasons 5 and 6. We leave the Queen, now a grandmother in her early sixties, with a quartet of increasingly troubled grown-up children.

Olivia Colman has been a success in the role and she has been ably supported by a cast (also presumably all destined to now be replaced) of which Tobias Menzies’ reliably crotchety Prince Philip, Erin Doherty’s sharp-witted Princess Anne and Helena Bonham Carter’s increasingly embittered and famously rude Princess Margaret have all been standouts.

This series has, of course, been dominated by both another Margaret and another Princess entirely. This episode sees Gillian Anderson’s Margaret Thatcher get her marching orders after a killer speech from supposed ‘dead sheep’ and onetime loyal if frequently bullied ally, Sir Geoffrey Howe (Paul Jesson) precipitates a fatal leadership contest from a never-seen Michael Heseltine. After a rocky road together, particularly during Episode 8’s Apartheid-themed episode, the monarch and the Iron Lady end things on fairly good terms, albeit only after a bizarre, presumably completely imagined episode in which Thatcher makes a last ditch effort to retain power by proposing a dissolution of parliament. The Queen declines and a diminished Thatcher, stunned by her loss, walks off into the political sunset. A workaholic with no interests outside politics, Margaret Thatcher never reconciled herself to her removal from power (an event which she perhaps should have recognised was always bound to occur at some point) and reportedly never lived a happy day again. Although many viewers have been reportedly troubled by the fusion of the actress’s sexual allure with the famously unsexy Thatcher, Gillian Anderson can at least walk away happily from this role. Following in the footsteps of such luminaries as Sylvia Sims, Hadyn Gwynne, Andrea Riseborough, Lindsay Duncan, Steve Nallon and Meryl Streep, her’s is undoubtedly the definitive screen Thatcher.

But the Lady’s not returning.

Of course, the other stand-out character of this series is ultimately headed for a grim fate too. Emma Corrin’s Princess Diana has also been a triumphant success, Corrin’s performance humanising a character who has become idolised to an almost magical status in many of the public’s eyes. The series leaves Charles (Josh O’Connor) and Diana’s marriage at very much a low point. With Series 5 destined to take events up to the fateful year of 1997, don’t expect things to get a lot better for them.

TV review: The Crown. Season 4. Episode 5: Fagan

The other woman: Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson)

With so many matters of historical import being dealt with, it is no surprise The Crown has often come under scrutiny as to whether it is factually accurate. Broadly speaking, as with any historical drama, be it Wolf Hall, I, Claudius or anything else, it is fair to say, some dramatic licence has often been deployed.

For example, nobody really knows what the Queen talks about with her Prime Ministers in their weekly audiences, other than the Queen and the surviving ministers themselves (insofar as they would remember). The writers can speculate, however, based on our knowledge of the times and the personalities involved.

Events have sometimes been moved slightly in time or changed slightly. Princess Diana wasn’t in costume when she first met Prince Charles. Mark Thatcher’s disappearance in 1982 did not overlap with the start of the Falklands Crisis. However, the broad narrative sweep of The Crown is largely accurate. It is also interesting to note that many sources claiming to list things The Crown “got dead wrong about history” not only often misrepresent what actually happened in the series but are pretty free in their own speculation about historic events themselves.

This episode deals with an incident which seems so far-fetched that it seems woefully implausible but yet did actually happen. In 1982, an unemployed painter and decorator, Michael Fagan (played here by Tom Brooke) did scale the 14 foot parameter wall of Buckingham Palace, shinnied up a drain pipe, climbed through an unlocked window and ultimately entered the Queen’s bedroom, briefly spending some time in the company of the understandably rattled monarch, before the alarm was raised.

Incredibly, this not only happened, but occurred only weeks after Fagan had already breached Palace security once before. On that first occasion, the Queen wasn’t present. Fagan had fled after being spotted in the Palace, having stolen and drunk what turned out to be a fairly cheap bottle of wine. Amazingly, although the Palace was fully aware of the incident, security was not tightened up enabling Fagan to do the same thing again soon afterwards, this time encountering the Queen, waking her up while she was in bed.

As unstable figure as he was, it is actually surprising Fagan even managed to locate the Queen. It is fortunate she was not attacked or even assassinated. Fagan had mental health issues and was institutionalised for three months. He is still alive today, aged 70, and has been critical of the programme.

In The Crown, Fagan uses his time with the Queen (Colman) to vent some of his frustrations with the political situation at the time. In reality, it is unlikely Fagan was as articulate about these issues during his brief audience with the Queen, but the episode takes advantage of the incident to highlight the vast gap between the Queen’s life and that of many of her subjects at that point.

In what is generally a much grittier episode than usual, we get to see many aspects of Fagan’s unhappy poverty-stricken life as he proves unable to find work or gain access to his children.

Britain was at a low ebb in 1982: unemployment had more than doubled in the previous three years. Despite this Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson) is accurately portrayed as being at the peak of  her political rebirth, following her victory in the South Atlantic.

TV review: The Crown. Season 4, Episode 4: Favourites

So far, most of the episodes in this series can be easily divided into ‘Princess Diana’ episodes or ‘Margaret Thatcher’ episodes. At one point, in this one, we see Princess Diana (Emma Corrin) struggling through her pregnancy with the future Prince William as her husband, Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) shouts at her through a door.

But otherwise, this is a Margaret Thatcher episode.

It’s 1982 and when we first see her in this episode, Mrs T (Gillian Anderson)is up in arms, not because of mass unemployment or the recession but because her idiot son Mark (Freddie Fox) has got lost in the Sahara desert while taking part in the Sahara-Dakar Rally. Mark is soon recovered safe and well, but the Queen is surprised to see a more vulnerable side to the Iron Lady in the meantime. She is also surprised by the Prime Minister’s undisguised favouritism for her son Mark over his twin sister Carol (Rebecca Humphries in a role played by Olivia Colman herself in the 2011 film, The Iron Lady). Here, as in reality, Mark is spoilt rotten by his mother, becoming brash and overconfident, despite ultimately being pretty thick. Though genuinely intelligent, Carol, in contrast, comparatively ignored by her headstrong and domineering mother, has low self-esteem, only proving a success later in life as Mark proves a failure.

With some dramatic licence, the Mark Thatcher Sahara story here slightly overlaps with the start of the Falklands War. This wasn’t the case: there was in fact several months’ distance between the two events. It is thus unlikely Thatcher was venting feelings about her son when she reacted to the news of developments in the South Atlantic, as is suggested here.

Thatcher’s clear favouritism does prompt a teasing suggestion to the Queen from Prince Philip (Tobias Menzies) that all parents have their own favourite amongst their own children. Philip here is upfront in admitting his own favourite is Princess Anne, a prejudice many viewers will doubtless share largely thanks to Erin Doherty’s winning performance.

But who is the Queen’s favourite? Her Royal Highness (played by Olivia Colman who won an Oscar for her portrayal of Queen Anne in the film, The Favourite) arranges a meeting with each of her four children. She is briefed about each of them first, just to ensure she is up to date.

The Queen finds her daughter as dry and grounded as ever. And yet she is clearly miserable: annoyed by how she is portrayed in the media (particularly when contrasted with the newcomer, Diana) and, crucially, unhappily married to Captain Mark Phillips.

Charles is unhappily married too and turning into a world class bore. The Queen reprimands him for his poor treatment of Diana and for continuing to see Camilla on the side.

For the first time we also get to meet the teenaged Prince Edward (Angus Imrie), who seems arrogant and is bullied at school. Despite being keen to go the Falklands, Prince Andrew (Tom Byrne) also already seems to be developing unsavoury attitudes and is clearly utterly fixated on his own chopper (his helicopter, I mean).

Little wonder as the Queen here concludes: Mark Thatcher may be the one to have gone missing. But it is her own children who seem lost.

TV review: The Crown. Season 4, Episode 2: The Balmoral Test

Balmoral: 1981. And the holidaying Royal Family are buzzing with excitement at the news a computer-animated male deer has been sighted, limping across the nearby landscape. Who amongst them will be the first to fell the wounded beast? This episode is entitled, ‘The Balmoral Test.’ It could just have easily been called, ‘Stag Party.’

The Windsors also have other prey in mind too, as the Prime Minister and her husband are set to join them for a few days of socially excruciating fun and games. Will Margaret and Denis Thatcher (Gillian Anderson and Stephen Boxer) prove up to the challenge? Will they, in short, pass ‘the Balmoral test?’

Spoiler alert: no. They don’t.

As usual, writer Peter Morgan presents a balanced view of things. On the one hand, Margaret Thatcher was clearly a workaholic, with little sense of humour and no sense of fun. In real life, she described Balmoral as “purgatory.” Here, she commits a number of social gaffes, notably turning up for a rural excursion to hunt the stag wearing a brilliant blue suit more appropriate for addressing the Conservative Party Conference than for crawling around in the undergrowth. The woman who, in reality, spent nearly every New Year’s Eve of her eleven-year premiership in the company of Jimmy Saville, proves unable to tolerate more than a few days with the holidaying Windsors. She has better things to do: the country is in the grip of recession and her Cabinet, some of whom were in ‘Allo ‘Allo (Guy Siner – Gruber in the sitcom, Sir Francis Pym in this) are in open revolt.

On the other hand, from Thatcher’s viewpoint, it’s easy to see why any outsider might struggle to get involved in the long established traditions of a close-knit family, particularly one as jaded and weird as the Windsors are. The Royal Family treat the Thatchers with frosty disdain, never explaining anything and assuming everyone else already knows their silly little rules. It’s not hard to see why the Iron Lady might not enjoy playing ‘Iggle Piggle’ or enjoy the delivery of Princess Anne’s (Erin Doherty) spirited animal impressions at close quarters. It also doesn’t help that two of the Royals, Princess Margaret and Prince Philip (Helena Bonham Carter and Tobias Menzies) were clearly amongst the rudest people to have ever lived.

Later, Mrs. Thatcher diminishes herself still further in the eyes of the Queen (Colman), by explaining that her purge of the Wets (that is, more moderate Tories, uneasy at the severe consequences of her economic policies) occurred almost entirely due to a lack of resolution on their part resulting from their privileged social background. This would have been an odd tactic to adopt when talking to the Queen, who is famously from quite a privileged background herself and doesn’t really do justice to the stubborn self-belief which enabled the Iron Lady to cling doggedly to such policies, even as society was devastated by mass unemployment.

Back at Balmoral, however, another new arrival – Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) brings a new subject for the family’s scrutiny, young Lady Diana Spencer (Emma Corrin). There is a slight sense of manipulation in the way Diana wins over the Royals – for example, she tells Philip (falsely) she is essentially a country girl at heart. But this isn’t overstated. Diana soon helps the Duke kill the stag, effectively winning over all the Royals (except Margaret) in one fell swoop. She has passed the Balmoral Test with flying colours!

Next time we see her, she is Diana as most of the wider world in 1981 first saw her. A beautiful but seemingly ordinary young woman at the centre of stories about her relationship with the Prince of Wales, smiling self-consciously as she walks down the street surrounded by a growing number of snapping photographers. She seems slightly irritated by all the attention, but also seems to be rather enjoying it at the same time.

And so, it begins…

TV review: The Crown. Season 4, Episode 1: Gold Stick

We pick up pretty much exactly where we left off.

It’s 1977 and the Queen is celebrating her Silver Jubilee. She is now around fifty (slightly older than Olivia Colman who plays her) and there is a sense the focus of the action is now shifting slightly away from her, Prince Philip (Tobias Menzies) and her drunken, unhappy, newly divorced sister, Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter) to the next generation: Charles (Josh O’Connor) and his youthful romantic entanglements and to Princess Anne (Erin Doherty) who is now married and enjoying success in her show-jumping career. The Queen’s two other children, Prince Edward and the now disgraced Prince Andrew, both teenagers at this point, have not really featured yet.

In the meantime, there’s a new face in Downing Street. Despite being an enthusiastic monarchist during his three-year spell as premier, poor old Jim Callaghan, doesn’t even get a look-in here. As with Alec Douglas-Home (who admittedly only lasted twelve months), “Sunny Jim” gets missed out of The Crown’s narrative completely. Instead, we jump straight to the May 1979 election of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s first woman PM and the only one of the Queen’s fourteen First Ministers to date, to be roughly the same age as the monarch herself.

There have been a number of great dramatic portrayals of Margaret Thatcher over the years ranging from Lindsay Duncan, Patricia Hodge, Haydn Gwynne and Meryl Streep. In Peter Morgan’s 2006 film, The Queen, Sylvia Sims, who had once starred in 1991’s TV drama, Thatcher: The Final Days played The Queen Mother. Fittingly, when Meryl Streep starred in The Iron Lady, her daughter, Carol was played by Olivia Colman, who, is, of course, now The Queen in The Crown.

Margaret Thatcher is certainly not an easy role to play, partly because years of elocution lessons topped off with Saatchi and Saatchi-inspired voice exercises combined to ensure that she literally spoke like no one else who has ever lived on the planet Earth. Gillian Anderson does very well, capturing amongst other things Thatcher’s total lack of any sense of humour whatsoever. Like Thatcher herself though, it seems likely her performance will divide audiences. Philip and Margaret’s husband Denis (Stephen Boxer), meanwhile, react in similarly old school fashion to the news that Britain is now being ruled by “two menopausal women”. The Queen, in time, (like many others) found the famously headstrong, combative and stubborn woman premier difficult to like. In this first episode, however, set in 1979, the monarch seems very receptive to her.

At one point, in a visual joke, we see the new Prime Minister doing the ironing. She is the Iron Lady. Get it?

Elsewhere, following Lord Mountbatten’s (Charles Dance) generally bad advice to “sow his wild oats.” Prince Charles is still carrying on with his now married, old flame, Camilla Parker Bowles (Emerald Fennell, not actually in this episode) while simultaneously dating one Lady Sarah Spencer (Isobel Eadie). It is during one visit to the Spencer household, having been briefly left alone with plenty of plants to talk to, that the thirty-ish Prince first encounters Sarah’s bewitching teenaged sister, Diana (Emma Corrin). More on her later…

This episode also deals with the assassination of Lord Mountbatten and three others by an explosion caused by a bomb planted by the Provisional IRA in August 1979. The explosion is cleverly spliced between footage of the other Royals seemingly simultaneously hunting, shooting and fishing during their own separate summer holidays.

In the wake of Mountbatten’s death, Anderson’s Thatcher (who had lost her own friend and colleague Airey Neave to a terrorist bombing only a few months earlier, although this isn’t referred to) promises vengeance to the Queen. Speaking during a private phone conversation, Anderson’s Thatcher adopts a vicious, vindictive tone, which one suspects, wasn’t what the grief-stricken monarch really needed to hear at the time.

TV review: The Crown. Season 3. Episode 10: Cri de Coeur

Sister act: Helena Bonham Carter plays Princess Margaret

And so the third series of The Crown comes to an end, bringing us up to 1977, the year of the Queen’s Silver Jubilee.

At one point in this episode, the dastardly Lord Snowdon (Ben Daniels) shows the Queen (Olivia Colman) some pictures of herself and Prince Philip, presumably supposed to have been taken in the early 1960s. “Gosh! Don’t we look young!” the Queen exclaims. The pictures are not, of course, of the Royal couple as we see them in the series now, but as they were in their younger incarnations when played by Claire Foy and Matt Smith in the first two series.

It is a nice nod to the past. For all Foy and Smith’s success, Season 3 has seen Olivia Colman and Tobias Menzies make the roles their own. Colman (in reality, now 46 years old) has taken the Queen from her late thirties in 1964, just into her fifties. Season 4, which is about to be released, will take the story up to 1990. The current plan is for two final series after that starring Imelda Staunton (an actress, currently in her mid-sixties) which will take us through most of the remaining years of the Queen’s long reign.

Most of this episode deals with Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter) and the wreckage of her disastrous marriage to philandering photographer, Lord Snowdon. An increasingly boozy and unhappy figure as she enters middle age, thanks to Snowdon’s womanising and general nastiness, Margaret finds solace in the arms of younger landscape gardener, Roddy Llewellyn (Harry Treadaway). After some brief and much deserved happiness, she ultimately narrowly survives a suicide attempt, provoking a genuine show of compassion from her sister. Sadly, Margaret’s ordeal does not inspire the same response from her mother (Marion Bailey) who dismisses this as a Cri de Coeur, (essentially ‘a cry for help’) rather than a serious attempt on her life. ‘Cri de Coeur’ is the title, an episode in which the Queen Mother comes across very badly.

The Queen (Olivia Colman) comforts her sister in the wake of her failing marriage.

Strangely, although Princess Anne, as played brilliantly by Erin Doherty has emerged as a major character in this series. her first marriage to Captain Mark Phillips in 1973 and her attempted kidnapping in 1974, both major events at the time, are not mentioned here at all.

We do, however, witness the departure of Prime Minister, Harold Wilson (Jason Watkins) in 1976, resigning suddenly after being returned to power in the two General Elections of 1974. Wilson here cites his Alzheimer’s diagnosis as his official reason for resigning. I’m not sure this was ever clearly stated, even in private, at the time.

As with creator Peter Morgan’s earlier play, The Audience, this series has seen the Queen and Wilson’s relationship blossom from an initially awkward one into probably the best relationship between a Prime Minister and the monarch of her entire reign. The Queen is visibly sorry to see Wilson go. Thanks to Jason Watkins’ brilliant performance, so are we.

Next up: a girl called Diana and another woman called Margaret show up as we begin The Crown Series 4…

This episode marks the end of Olivia Colman’s reign as Queen.

TV review: The Crown. Season 3, Episode 7: Moondust

Middle years: The Queen and Philip (Olivia Colman) and Tobias Menzies) reach middle-age.

In July 1969, man finally walked on the Moon. It was an astonishing achievement, the summit of human accomplishment. Even today, many of the world’s stupidest people still struggle to comprehend that it actually really happened.

The Apollo 11 landings had many consequences. One important one, often overlooked, is that they seem to have caused the Duke of Edinburgh to have a mid-life crisis. At least, that’s what The Crown says anyway.

Summer of ’69: The moon has changed remarkably little in the years since.

From the outset, Prince Philip (Tobias Menzies) is mesmerised by the media coverage of the Apollo mission. This is portrayed as coinciding with a loss of faith he was experiencing. At one point, during a journey in a private plane, he terrifies his co-pilot by taking the controls and flying to a dangerously high altitude. It as if he is intent on launching an impossible mission to go to the Moon himself, his own life having been eclipsed by the Queen’s.

On another occasion, he is rude to a bunch of vicars, (one of whom, is incidentally, played by the great comic actor, Kevin Eldon, in a rare straight role). Later, he meets the three astronauts who have now returned from space. He meets Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin anyway: Michael Collins is made to wait in the car outside (only joking). Although he is awe of their achievement, Philip is disappointed by their conversation, apparently regarding them as mediocre. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” he reflects. “I was expecting them to be giants, gods. In the end they were just three little men. Pale-faced, with colds.”

To the viewer, of course, it is only Philip who seems like the dull one. It is unclear why he is so annoyed that the spacemen have colds (as they apparently really did have, when he met them in 1969), for example, as this is a perfectly human and unavoidable anyway. In a not always believable episode, however, the characterisation of Philip as a frequently rude and ill-tempered man is, however, only too plausible.

In the end, the Duke befriends Dean Robin Woods (Tim McMullan) and finds the courage to ask for help in his quest to find his own personal sea of tranquillity.

One giant leap for the Duke? Perhaps not. But it’s certainly one small step for the man.

Edinburgh nights: A quiet moment with the Duke.

TV review: The Crown. Season 3, Episode 6: Tywysog Cymru

Charles in charge: The once and future King (Josh O’Connor).

It has long been accepted that just because someone holds the title Prince of Wales, it does not mean that they are necessarily Welsh or have much to do with Wales.

Indeed, not since an early medieval example, who later became King Edward II, no Princes of Wales have been from Wales at all. No, being Prince of Wales just means is that you will probably be King some day, and even then, the odds are not great. Looking back, only about two in every three Princes of Wales have ever made it to the throne. These are much better odds than the average person faces admittedly, but still not exactly a shoe-in.

In 1969, Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales at a lavish ceremony at Caernarfon Castle, as a young man. Over fifty years later and Charles is a grandfather in his seventies. He is still waiting to be King. As Alan Bennett wrote in ‘The Madness of George III,’ “being Prince of Wales isn’t a position. It’s a predicament.”

Queen but not heard (Olivia Colman).

As his ceremony approached, it was decided that Charles (played here by Josh O’Connor) should be taken out of Cambridge University, where he seemed to engage in constant amateur dramatics and be temporarily transferred to Aberystwyth where he could brush up on the Welsh language. This would serve him well as he would have to speak in Welsh during the ceremony.

According to The Crown, Charles had a difficult time at Aberystwyth, encountering some hostility from the burgeoning Welsh nationalist movement and enduring an initially awkward relationship with Edward “Tedi” Millward (Mark Lewis Jones), the Plaid Cymru politician, dedicated republican and tutor assigned to inculcate the future King Charles III in the ways of the Welsh tongue.

Incidentally, on a personal note, I could relate to some aspects of this as I studied at Aberystwyth myself. It was thirty years after Charles was there though, I did not study Welsh while I was there and I did not undergo an investiture ceremony to become Prince of Wales shortly afterwards.

Good though this episode is, in some ways, the later scenes are most interesting, revealing a colder, harder side to the Queen (Olivia Colman) than we have seen before.

And ‘Tywysog Cymru?’ It just means ‘Prince of Wales.’

Charles (Josh O’Connor) becomes Prince of Wales.

TV review: The Crown. Season 3, Episode 5: Coup

It’s easy to forget that in the late 1960s, Britain was beset by many problems, one consequence being the devaluation of the pound in 1967. Many of these issues now seem unimportant and comparatively minor compared to some of the things we have seen since. They did, however, seem pretty important at the time.

At one point, indeed, things seemed so desperate that a cabal of powerful people including Cecil King (played here by Rupert Vansittart), head of Mirror Group Newspapers in the pre-Maxwell era, approached the ageing Lord Mountbatten of Burma to help out.

Mountbatten was, in fact, the second son of the eldest daughter of the second daughter of Queen Victoria, but what was viewed as a distinguished record of service had elevated him to the status of a high profile role in the post-war Royal Family. He was a famous and respected figure, particular admired by many of those who also happened to have right-wing tendencies.

Mountbatten was played by Greg Wise in the first two series of The Crown. He is now played by Charles Dance, an actor totally unlike Wise, yet at the same time, like Wise, very well suited to the role.

The group approach Mountbatten with a suggestion which appeals both to his patriotism and his vanity: why not depose the democratically elected Labour Government of Harold Wilson (Jason Watkins) and rule Britain yourself until you’ve got the nation back on the ‘right’ track? A very British coup, in effect.

And, yes, this is one conspiracy theory based on a conspiracy which did actually exist. Dance’s Mountbatten is sceptical about the chances of this particular game of thrones resulting in victory. But he does, at least, seem to entertain the possibility of going ahead with it.

Meanwhile, the Queen (Olivia Colman) perhaps taking her eye off the ball slightly, has gone on a tour of France and America. The tour sees the Queen indulging her love of horses at one point confiding her to her friend and colleague, Lord “Porchie” Porchester (John Hollingworth) that a life and career breeding horses is one which she might in an ideal world, have preferred to have lived, had not “the other thing” got in the way. ‘The other thing,’ of course, refers to her duty to serve the Crown, a burden she blames her uncle, the Duke of Windsor for offloading onto her late father and her.

It is an interesting idea. If she ever has thought this, the Queen is, of course, largely ignoring the fact that it is largely only down to an accident of birth (namely being a member of the aristocracy) that she was ever in a position to contemplate a career breeding horses in the first place. Many non-aristocrats have enjoyed such a career, of course. But, for most people, such a life, travelling around visiting stables and racetracks has never really been a realistic possibility.

And what of the Queen and ‘Porchie’? Travelling without Philip, the Queen often seems surprisingly intimate with her childhood friend on this tour. There is a bit of dramatic licence here: the trip did not occur at the same time as Mountbatten’s manoeuvrings. It was slightly later in 1969: a paranoid Wilson would not have called her about Mountbatten’s plotting during it. Indeed, for all we know, the two may never have ever discussed the subject. We wouldn’t know, either way.

However, the tour itself definitely did happen. The real Lord Porchester died in 2001.

But contrary to rumours about the programme, the writers of The Crown do not in any way suggest anything unseemly happened between the monarch and her fellow equestrian. The writers too, may have entertained the possibility, but at the end of the day, they are no keener on committing treason than Lord Mountbatten was.