Peter Goers: Why I’m hooked on The Crown

If The Crown weren’t true it would be ludicrous – but the “classy epic” soap opera is as compelling as it is addictive, writes Peter Goers.

Who doesn’t love a soap opera? The Crown is a great soap opera. It’s like The Bold and the Beautiful but not as believable. If The Crown weren’t true it would be ludicrous. It’s compelling and addictive.

The show presents the life of the late Queen and it’s done a lot for the monarchy. It has added to the popularity and allure of the Royal Family and personified them by helping us to understand them. The show looks beyond caricature to the real caricatures underneath.

It’s a classy epic. The Windsors seem to be everyone’s other family and like almost all families, it’s dysfunctional and every dysfunctional family is dysfunctional in its own way.

The Windsor dysfunction became very public in the 90s which is the decade of this current Season 5 and, shortly, Season 6 of this hugely popular, wonderful show.

The poor old Queen was dealing with the divorces of three of her four children including the spectacularly rancorous collapse of the marriage of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The monarchy was on the nose. The Queen was ever valiant but tired and badly dressed.

Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth II in The Crown season 5. Picture: Netflix

Monarchists want to censure and censor this show. Apparently we need to forget that King Charles III was an ardent adulterer and his once-reviled mistress, Camilla, is now Her Majesty The Queen Consort. Most of this season is about poor old Charles waiting, plotting. complaining and bonking. This is pretty standard for the heir to a throne.

The Crown has inevitable soap opera tropes. The Queen looks pensively sideways when she’s in emotional turmoil. It’s an odd portrayal of Queen Elizabeth as she seems unlikeable and unsmiling. The contradictions in this woman and her family are superbly portrayed. They are very ordinary people in extraordinary roles.

The Queen shows more affection to her beloved corgis than to her children. The Queen blithely gives Charles the £17m for Diana’s divorce settlement yet sits watching an ancient television by a antique two-bar radiator.

The best scene in the series is when the old TV is on the blink and she tells the young Prince William she thinks it is rented. Later, hilariously, William tries to show the Queen and the Queen Mother how to work the remote control on a new cable TV.

As ever, The Crown is beautifully observed. The decor of palaces is down-at-heels chintz, as tired as the monarchy itself. The costumes are perfect.

Prince Harry is barely seen but the understandable pain of Prince William through his parents’ agonised divorce is portrayed with great understanding and compassion.

Australian actress Elizabeth Debicki portraying Princess Diana in the latest season of The Crown.

Claire Foy and Olivia Colman are brilliant as the Queen in previous seasons. Suspension of disbelief meant that we didn’t see actors, we saw the Queen. Imelda Staunton fails in this regard. Similarly Jonathan Pryce gives a great performance as Jonathan Pryce rather than Prince Philip. Conversely, Dominic West, who looks nothing like Charles, is perfect in mannerism and speech. Australia’s own Elizabeth Debicki at 1.9m is far too tall for Diana but is otherwise excellent with her come-hither glance. Lesley Manville fails as the monstrously entitled Princess Margaret and Marcia Warren is lovely as the Queen Mother but too thin. Olivia Willams is fascinating as Camilla but the best performances come from Jonny Lee Miller as the stoic PM John Major and Senan West as Prince William.

There is truth telling. In a flashback, we see how the Windsors sacrificed their Romanoff cousins to Bolshevik murder.

Do famous people watch shows about themselves? Reputedly, Richard Nixon never saw the highly sympathetic opera Nixon In China even when it was televised. Can we trust Nixon? I also never believe actors who say they don’t read their reviews.

At the end of The Crown we see the royals embrace public relations spin doctors. They worked hard as now Charles’ trespasses are forgiven and Camila – whom we were told would never be queen – is.

Heavy is the head that wears the crown and heavier is the head that can’t bear The Crown.