November 9 will be exactly two months and one day of the death of queen elizabeth ii and it will be the day of the premiere, in Netflixfrom the fifth season of ‘The Crown’, the series that fictionalizes the life of the monarch from her arrival to the throne until modern times. The platform has published new images of the protagonists. We had already seen Imelda Staunton as Elizabeth II, Elizabeth Debicki and Dominic West as Diana of Wales and Prince Charles, but now Netflix shows for the first time the interpreters who bring to life Camilla Parker-Bowles, Prince Philip, Princess Margaret, Princess Anne, William and Harry or Prime Minister John Majoramong others.
What does the fifth season tell?
The new episodes will pick up the plot around the point where the last installment left us. It was in the late 1990s when Margaret Thatcher was forced to resign as Prime Minister and leader of the Conservative Party in November. Meanwhile, in the personal sphere of the monarchy, Christmas 1990 made clear the irreconcilable distance between Carlos and Diana and the loneliness of Diana of Wales, at the same time that her public image was strengthened. well into the decade, the royal family faces what is possibly their biggest challenge to date as the public openly questions their role. Politically, and after having met nine prime ministers and witnessing the decline of the British Empire, the United Kingdom is facing new obstacles. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the transfer of Hong Kong’s sovereignty point to a sea change in the international order that poses both challenges and opportunities. Meanwhile, problems are brewing in a much more private sphere.
As can be seen in the images, one of the moments that we will see reflected in the series will be the famous speech for the commemoration of her 40th anniversary on the throne at the end of November 1992, a year that the queen described as “annus horribilis”. With the popularity of the monarchy at its lowest levels to date, the queen faced the fire at Windsor Castle that year, an event that opened the debate on the cost of the institution, and the successive marriage scandals of all the children. her. Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson separated in March, Princess Anne divorced her husband Mark Philips in April and On December 9, Prime Minister John Major made an open secret official, the “friendly separation” of Prince Charles and Lady Di.
The couple’s situation was untenable and ‘The Crown’ will reflect how Prince Charles (Dominic West) pressures his mother to let him divorce Diana (Elizabeth Debicki), which undoubtedly causes a constitutional crisis of the monarchy. The couple lead increasingly independent lives and rumors and media scrutiny are mounting. Finally, Diana decides to take charge of the discourse around her person and —ignoring family protocol— publishes a book that reduces public support for Carlos and exposes the cracks between the Windsors.
The divorce will finally come in the summer of 1996 and, as will be seen in the series, tensions will rise with the appearance of Mohamed Al Fayed (Salim Daw).. Determined to be accepted in the most exclusive circles, the businessman uses the fortune and power he has amassed in order to win a position for himself and another for his son Dodi (Khalid Abdalla) within the company. royalty. It is not confirmed until what year the fifth installment will cover, but most likely it will not arrive until the end of the decade since, as it has transpired, the fatal accident of Diana of Wales and Dodi Al Fayed in 1997 is part of the shooting of the sixth season that is already underway.
The new cast of the fifth season
In the images released by Netflix, we have been able to see Dominic West and Elizabeth Debicki again as Prince Charles of England and Diana of Wales. Although one of the photos is a beautiful snapshot of the couple with their children, Guillermo and Harry, the decade of the 90s that the new season addresses made the distancing of the marriage patent and official. This is also seen in the photograph of a lonely Lady Di (Elizabeth Debicki) attending an event and in another image that shows the closeness between Carlos and Camila Parker-Bowles. In fact, it is the first time that we see Olivia Williams as Camilla Parker Bowles. The role of Williams is not easy at all and she wanted to show “her affection for her” for a very misunderstood character. “One of the great things about ‘The Crown’ is that we get to see intimate moments imagined, which maybe gives us a better perspective of someone we’ve judged.”
The actor Dominic West has declared in the Netflix Tudum postwhich means playing a real character: “It’s not an imitation.” And he has explained that “it is an evocation of a character”. And he has entered into the clarification of the controversy that arose around the series when it was suggested to Netflix that it publish a warning that the series is fiction and not real events. “The show really lives in the imagined conversations of their private lives, which is something no one knows about. I think that gets a lot of flak. How do you know what they talk about in their private lives? The obvious answer is we don’t, But we have an amazing writer who imagines based on extensive research, and that’s really part of the fascination of the series.” Her co-star, Elizabeth Debicki, has highlighted that now that the plot enters the 90s, it has had a lot of visual material because “Diana was the most photographed person in the world at that time” and she has assured that she felt “happy immersing herself in that tsunami of information material”.
Together with them, the rest of the characters in the cast change and Jonathan Price takes over from Tobias Menzies as Prince Philip, a role for which the actor has thoroughly investigated to find out “what made him the man he was” apart from the public figure. Replacing Vanessa Kirbi in the first two seasons and Helena Bonham Carter in the later episodes, Lesley Manville reprises the role of Princess Margaret in which she has been able to work for almost two years. Claudia Harrison replaces actress Erin Doherty to play Princess Anne, the only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II. Finally, Jonny Lee Miller plays Prime Minister John Major after the resignation of Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson).
