 head north on Britannia, Charles and Diana are holidaying on a flashy superyacht. He wants to visit ancient ruins, she wants to go shopping. They're thoroughly miserable together, and their boys can see it. The themes are clearly set out in this opening episode. The Waleses are openly at war, while Charles is privately scheming against the Queen because he is itching to replace her and modernise the monarchy. Charles engineers a meeting with the new Prime Minister, John Major, to elicit his support for the Queen's abdication.){kind=link}
Dominic West has mastered the mannerisms of the then-Prince of Wales, but Elizabeth Debicki’s Diana is more impressionism than great acting
Series five of The Crown kicks off with a reminder of how it all began: with Claire Foy. A black-and-white flashback to the Queen as a young woman, launching the Royal Yacht Britannia. They were simpler times, weren’t they? I don’t mean the 1950s, but the days when The Crown could be viewed as a largely unproblematic period drama and not an attempt to milk the Royal family’s misery for all it is worth.
Foy disappears from the screen, and we’re introduced to a new Queen by way of a medical. Blood pressure 122/80, bit overweight. “Just pop your stockings off, Your Majesty.” These scenes would feel uncomfortably intrusive for any 65-year-old woman, let alone a beloved monarch who died two months ago. It’s an odd way to start.
Imelda Staunton is playing the Queen as Private Eye’s Brenda. “Right, I’m orf. One last day cutting ribbons in Morecambe, then feet up for the summer,” she tells Philip. They’re off to Scotland on Britannia, here portrayed as her favourite “home”. But Britannia is creaking, expensive to maintain and seems to have no place in the modern world. Do you see any hulking great metaphors sailing into view?
As the Queen and Philip (Jonathan Pryce, bringing a suitable level of gravitas) head north on Britannia, Charles and Diana are holidaying on a flashy superyacht. He wants to visit ancient ruins, she wants to go shopping. They’re thoroughly miserable together, and their boys can see it.