Palace intrigue galore
FEW TV shows have transfixed the world like The Crown. The Peter Morgan created Netflix drama is equal parts fiction and non-fiction, and trying to decipher what is and what isn’t true has become a favourite pastime for fans. With the fourth season premiering today, it’s time to dive in and tease what you can expect from this season.
DIANA, DIANA, DIANA
We are finally getting to see Lady Diana Spencer becoming Princess Diana of Wales. Ever since the casting of Emma Corrin, who looks uncanningly like Diana, we have been practically chomping at the bit with anticipation. Most of us fear whether Emma will impress as Diana. Early reviews say we shouldn’t be worried – she more than exceeds expectations. Apparently she embodies everything about Diana so perfectly, many of us are likely to do a double take when she appears on screen. We will get to meet Diana as a young girl, as a teenager, the engagement and struggles with bulimia. We will also see the star-making scenes of the tour to Australia and New Zealand, which cemented Diana as the true star of the British royal family.
MARGARET THATCHER
Margaret Thatcher is portrayed by Gillian Anderson. It is said that Queen Elizabeth and Thatcher had a very tumultuous relationship, thanks to them being the same age and also Thatcher not being one to mince her words, monarch or not. The two famously agreed on the Falklands War and then famously clashed on sanctions against apartheid South Africa. I look forward to how Olivia Colman and Anderson approach the scenes. I am expecting fireworks and the best face acting of the year.
PRINCESS MARGARET
While the third season showed Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter) and Antony Armstrong-Jones’s (Ben Daniels) marriage collapsing, there was a shining moment when she went to the US and was the star who saved the relationship between the US and the UK. In the late ’70s she and Armstrong-Jones were living separate lives. In this season, the restless princess is now a divorcée and living her best life. It’s party and society events all day, every day, interspersed with some official events, where it is reported she showed up with the faint smell of gin from the day
