First look at The Crown 5
With new pics of Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki in character as Charles and Diana, we take a look at Who's Who in the next season of the hit show...
We don’t know about you, but seeing the first photos of Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki as Charles and Diana in The Crown 5, this week, has us desperate for more.
Kerry took a look at Who’s Who in the next season of the Netflix royal drama, for The Sunday Telegraph. Filming for The Crown Season Five is underway around the UK, with the series expected to air in 2022. And it’s all-change for the royal drama, as a new cast takes on the award-winning roles for its final two seasons.
Season Five takes place in the 1990s and Imelda Staunton becomes the Queen, taking over from Olivia Colman and Claire Foy. She is joined by Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip, continuing on from Tobias Menzies and Matt Smith, Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret, following Helena Bonham Carter and Vanessa Kirby, Dominic West as Prince Charles, taking over from Josh O’Connor and Elizabeth Debicki plays the older Diana, after Emma Corrin aced her performance of the young princess in Season Four. Here’s what to expect:
Imelda Staunton is the Queen
Royal rating: Crown jewel
We predict the Harry Potter actor is going to be magic in the role of Elizabeth II. Imelda will tackle some of the Royal Family’s most challenging periods – including the Queen’s annus horribilis which saw the disintegration of three of her children’s marriages and Windsor Castle catching fire, and later, Diana’s death.
Jonathan Pryce is Prince Philip
Royal rating: Diamond Duke
Another experienced actor moving into the palace is Jonathan Pryce, who played Cardinal Wolsey in Wolf Hall and High Sparrow in Game of Thrones. We don’t expect him to come to a sticky end in this role, though, just continue the classy delivery of Philip that Tobias Menzies and Matt Smith also delivered.
Lesley Manville is Princess Margaret
Royal rating: Tiara to all that
The Margaret mantle is being taken up by Lesley Manville, who once played Margaret Thatcher in the TV series The Queen. She’s also previously worked with Jonathan Pryce and Imelda Staunton in period drama Cranford and said, “I could not be happier to be playing Princess Margaret. The baton is being passed on from two formidable actresses and I really don’t want to let the side down.”
Elizabeth Debicki is Princess Diana
Royal rating: G’Di mate
Aussie Elizabeth Debicki takes on the role from Emma Corrin, who was the stand-out of the last season. But we don’t think this will prove too formidable a challenge for the already regal actor, who has tackled everything from The Great Gatsby to Tenet and Peter Rabbit. She earlier said, “Princess Diana’s spirit, her words and her actions live in the hearts of so many. It is my true privilege and honour to be joining this masterful series, which had me absolutely hooked from episode one.”
Dominic West is Prince Charles
Royal rating: A right Charlie
The actor, famous for The Wire, The Affair and those pics with The Pursuit of Love co-star Lily James, takes on the role from Josh O’Connor and we’re fairly sure the charismatic star is going to steamroll through the part. Camilla, according to reports, will be played by Olivia Williams, who is also filming the UK remake of Call My Agent with Dominic and Helena Bonham Carter.
Claudia Harrison is Princess Anne
Royal rating: Olympian task
Claudia Harrison is steeling herself to play the Princess Royal and we’re hoping she has the mettle. The actor, who has worked solidly in British TV shows such as Humans and The IT Crowd, replaces the excellent Erin Doherty and will get to tackle Anne’s divorce and second marriage to Timothy Laurence, played by The Thick Of It star Theo Fraser Steele.
Jonny Lee Miller is John Major
Royal rating: Gets our vote
Trainspotting’s Jonny Lee Miller has unnerved fans by being cast as far-from-sexy British Prime Minister John Major, dubbed “the grey man of politics.” Major was succeeded by Tony Blair in 1997, the year Diana died, but that role has not been announced yet.
James Murray is Prince Andrew
Royal rating: Palace confidential
Finally, replacing Tom Byrne in what insiders have suggested must have been the least-contested role on TV, comes James Murray as Prince Andrew. The TV actor, who has had roles on Primeval and Suspects, will play the prince through the period of his marital breakdown and let’s not wonder what else, although, if it’s anything like Season Four, he won’t be on-screen often.
Charles gets a celebrity glow-up
Is it wrong to fancy Prince Charles? Because that’s the uncomfortable position The Crown has put Kerry in, by casting Dominic West as the Prince of Wales. She wrote an opinion piece for The Sunday Telegraph. Here are some of her thoughts…
This week Netflix released a first picture of The Affair actor in character and double-breasted suit and crinkle-cut aristo hair notwithstanding, dirty Dominic is still very much in evidence. I’m experiencing conflicting emotions. Imagine how happy Prince Charles is, he must be punching the air in jubilation with his celebrity glow-up. Everyone has done the “who would play you in a Hollywood film of your life” game and there are not many men who would be crestfallen at the answer Dominic West.
There’s some good news to put the wind up his kilt on his Scottish break. Let’s face it, the Balmoral breakfast buffet bantz was always going to be awkward with Prince Andrew and Fergie. “So… what have you been up to lately?”
Meanwhile, The Crown is continuing to sex up the royals with its kind casting – Matt Smith and Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip, Gillian Anderson as Margaret Thatcher and we’re still thinking about Greg Wise’s Mountbatten.
Prince Charles can’t have liked the Josh O’Connor version of himself, however accurate, as it was much too weighted on the weasel-ometer, but Dominic is a different beast entirely. After all, if he could make us still like The Wire’s Detective Jimmy McNulty by the end of the show, despite the booze, lovers and lies, he could – possibly – convince us to root (steady, punsters) for Charles.
Philip and Penny’s controversial plotline
It’s no secret The Crown is not must-see TV at the palace, and with the news that Prince Philip’s long-term close friendship with Penelope (Penny) Knatchbull, will feature in Season Five it’ll definitely stay that way.
With accomplished actress Natascha McElhone playing the now 68-year-old Countess Mountbatten, this is a storyline unlikely to be relegated to the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Andrew and Fergie romance of Season Four.
Penny is thought to have met Philip in 1974 when she was dating Norton Knatchbull, now the 3rd Earl Mountbatten of Burma, grandson of Earl Mountbatten, Philip’s beloved uncle. Prince Charles was best man when she married Norton in 1979.
Then tragically in 1991, the mum of three lost her youngest daughter Leonora to kidney cancer at the age of five. Philip began to invite Penny on carriage rides and she became passionate about carriage driving. In Prince Philip Revealed, biographer Ingrid Seward wrote: “When I saw Philip and Penny gilding around the dance floor at the Royal Yacht Squadron Ball during Cowes Week, neither of them gave a damn who saw them or what anyone might say.”
Over the years, Seward says Penny became the “second-most important woman in the Duke of Edinburgh’s life - a constant confidante, loyal companion and keeper of secrets.” Penny visited him frequently at Sandringham after his retirement in 2017, and she was one of the 30 mourners at his funeral in April.
Diana’s deleted Crown scene goes viral
Netflix kindly shared a deleted scene from Season Four for all of us suffering Emma Corrin withdrawal symptoms. At just over four minutes long, the poignant scene shows Diana, Princess of Wales, in full costume on a West End stage singing All I Ask Of You, from The Phantom of the Opera, one of the princess’s favourite musicals.
In the newly released clip, Diana’s alone in her bedroom watching the video of her performance. It was in an episode called Avalanche that we see Diana giving Charles this video as a gift for their seventh wedding anniversary in 1988. He later described it as ‘monstrous’ to Princess Anne.
The episode charting the disintegration of their marriage also features Diana surprising Charles by dancing with Wayne Sleep to Uptown Girl at the Royal Opera House. A 1985 birthday gift that reportedly bombed.
Jessica Hobbs, director of the episode, said while Diana did perform a dance routine of All I Ask Of You, she didn’t sing. “She’d done a dance for him that was filmed on stage, in the costumes, on the real set. So, we extended that to her singing.”
No pressure then, Debicki.
Camilla’s garden gremlins
In a horticultural TV plot twist we’re pretty sure won’t make The Crown, the Duchess of Cornwall joined presenter Monty Don to make a guest appearance on BBC Two Gardeners’ World last week. During their conversation she revealed to having a bit of a problem with voles and mice munching on her produce.
“I’m very lucky I've got a big vegetable garden, but you get the mice, the voles this year, all ate the asparagus roots and then they got into the strawberries, so you can never win, there’s always something,” she said. Both Camilla and Charles are passionate gardeners, and she continued, “There is something very healing about gardens.” Just don’t mention the ravenous rodents.