Synopsis: Season 5 of “The Crown” takes dramatic liberties, some have attacked “The Crown” for making fiction appear to be fact but here’s where they lean towards history.
The Crown’ Season 5 takes dramatic liberties
Some have attacked “The Crown” for making fiction appear to be fact.
Netflix’s wildly popular dramatisation of the modern-day British royal family’s lives is packed with drama – perhaps too much for some people.
Season 5 premiered on Wednesday, and it was already causing controversy.
That’s because former British Prime Minister Sir John Major complained that a scene depicting him and then-Prince Charles (played by Dominic West) discussing a conspiracy to depose his mother, Queen Elizabeth, from the throne while Major was in government was a “barrel load of malicious nonsense.”
Actress Judi Dench cosigned in a letter to The Times requesting that Netflix add a disclaimer to the series..
Dench wrote, “No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged,” “Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a “fictionalised drama” the programme makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode.”
But the series does include some true history, even if it does have a propensity to embellish things here and there.
Here are several subtle and meaningful examples of when the show draws on actual history.
Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s miserable marriage
The story begins with the cherished royal couple departing on what was supposed to be a romantic vacation, but does not turn out to be so.
We don’t know if a young Prince William and Prince Harry sided with their mother over their father on holiday activities, but the show does a fantastic job of portraying how unhappy Princess Diana and subsequently Prince Charles were.
They cover everything, from Andrew Morton’s explosive “Diana” book (on which she worked behind the scenes) in 1996 to the complete embarrassment that was the leaking of then-Prince Charles and his now-wife Camilla’s filthy phone conversations, which generated a great uproar because of infidelity.
One gets the impression that, as torturous as it appears on the television, things were far worse for the pair in real life.
The fire at Windsor Castle serving as a metaphor
During her address commemorating her 40th anniversary on the throne, Queen Elizabeth mentions 1992 as her “annus horribilis.”
“1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure,” she stated.
One of the reasons she had such a bad year was a fire at Windsor Castle, which destroyed over 100 rooms.
The fire isn’t a major plot point, but a sequence in which Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth surveys the devastation that appears to be a metaphor of her family’s and, by extension, her country’s problems.
The friendship between Prince Phillip and Penny Knatchbull
Penny Knatchbull married the Duke of Edinburgh’s godson, but her bond with Prince Phillip extended beyond that.
After a family catastrophe, Prince Phillip steps in to help Knatchbull, which leads to years of them growing closer.
She rose to become “the Duke of Edinburgh’s second-most important woman — a constant confidante, loyal companion, and ‘keeper of secrets.'” Ingrid Seward wrote about Prince Philip in her 2020 book “Prince Philip Revealed.”
“The Crown” emphasises that the considerably older Prince Phillip was not romantically interested with Knatchbull, but rather bonded over mutual interests like as carriage riding.
That REVENGE dress
Princess Diana walked out in a black, off-the-shoulder Christina Stambolian gown dubbed “the revenge dress” after Prince Charles confessed during an ITN programme in 1994 that he had not been devoted to her.
Elizabeth Debicki, who is gaining acclaim for her portrayal of Princess Diana, recreates the now-iconic sequence in the performance.
Trailer of “The Crown” season 5
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