The Crown has a brand-new cast for its fifth season, including Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana, taking over from Emma Corrin in Season 4, and Dominic West as Prince Charles, taking over from Josh O’Connor, who won an Emmy for his portrayal. Imelda Staunton takes over from Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II. Also joining the cast are Jonathan Pryce as the Queen’s husband, Prince Philip, Lesley Manville) as her sister Princess Margaret and Jonny Lee Miller as Prime Minister John Major
According to reports, Season 5 of The Crown is the show’s penultimate season. It examines the royal family’s lives throughout the 1990s. The new cast, which includes Salim Daw as Mohamed Al-Fayed, a wealthy department store owner, Khalid Abdalla as his son Dodi, and Humayun Saeed as Dr. Hasnat Khan, provides some hints as to the themes the show may cover. Before she and Dodi died in a car tragedy in Paris in 1997, Princess Diana had a covert romance with Khan, a heart surgeon.
It’s expected that season five will start in the early 1990s and end around the middle of that decade. The Queen had a lot of turmoil in the early half of the 1990s, and there were many events that beg to be dramatized. She called 1992 her “annus horribilis” in a speech she gave in 1992 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of her accession. Three of her children’s marriages ended in divorce: Princess Anne and Mark Phillips’s divorce was finalized in April; The dissolution of the so called fairytale between Prince Charles and Princess Diana, following the heartbreaking details of their bitter divorce being revealed to the public. Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson’s marriage ended in divorce in March. A fire at Windsor Castle also occurred during this time, which caused more than £36m in damages.
In October, reports emerged that one episode in season five would show Prince Charles meeting with the then-prime minister John Major in 1991 to discuss the Queen’s possible abdication. In an interview with The Mail on Sunday on 15 October, Major denied that any such conversation took place, calling the scene “a barrel-load of malicious nonsense”. A statement from his office added: “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. As you will know, 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.”
In response, a spokesperson for The Crown described the latest instalment of the show as “a fictional dramatization, imagining what could have happened behind closed doors during a significant decade for the royal family one that has already been scrutinized and well-documented by journalists, biographers and historians.” However, more controversies are expected as the season airs.
The show’s newest season, which will begin two months after the queen passed away, is drawing criticism from some viewers for bringing up more current controversies while the family is already in mourning.
In a letter to The Sunday Times, Oscar-winning actress Dame Judi Dench pleaded with the show’s makers to “reconsider” their strategy.
“The closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism,” Dench wrote.
“The time has come for Netflix to reconsider,” she continued. “For the sake of a family and a nation so recently bereaved, as a mark of respect to a sovereign who served her people so dutifully for 70 years, and to preserve their own reputation in the eyes of their British subscribers.”
The show will premiere on 9th November 2022.
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