Debicki steals the show in dull royal drama

Three high-profile divorces, a fire at Windsor Castle, and a Monarchy straining for relevance should have made nutritious fodder for drama, but it all feels a little anemic. 

The much-discussed, much-denounced fifth season of Peter Morgan’s everlasting royal soap opera falls flat.

“It feels it’s all about to erupt,” so says former British Prime Minister John Major (Jonny Lee Miller), in episode one of the new season of The Crown.

It is 1991: Margaret Thatcher has been given the boot; Britain has slid into recession; the  Soviet Union is in dissolution; but ah! Queen Elizabeth II’s beloved SS Britannia needs a facelift. 

The much-discussed, much-denounced fifth season of Peter Morgan’s everlasting royal soap opera arrives with the promise of high drama. This chapter of The Crown zeroes in on a particularly strained period for the royals, the early to mid-1990s. Three high-profile divorces, a fire at Windsor Castle, and a Monarchy straining for relevance should have made nutritious fodder for drama, but it all feels a little anemic. 

Perhaps, given recent events, it’s a case of Royals fatigue — but watching monarchs slice through boiled potatoes at a shipping freight company’s ribbon-cutting ceremony doesn’t exactly make for riveting television. 

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

That’s not to say it’s without its highs: the production is first-class, the costumes dazzling, and its new throng of actors are superb: Imelda Staunton is Queen Elizabeth II, who at 65 is having trouble keeping with the times. This Queen is sweet albeit fuddy-duddy (she makes daffy jokes about “stinky Minky whales”, but can’t grasp that the government funding a £15 million upgrade for her luxury yacht during an economic crisis may not be in the public's best interest). And Jonathan Pryce has cooled Prince Philip’s fiery temperament — perhaps in respect of his passing.

The senior royals are reduced to mostly loveable, but reliably maddening oldies — sidelined in favour of the season's true dramatic fixation: the dissolution of Prince Charles (Dominic West) and Diana Spencer’s (Australia’s Elizabeth Debicki) marriage. Their marital strife is laid on thick (in the first episode a quip about the “bride and gloom” is repeated twice), but despite the ham-fisted script, West and Debicki are both gripping.

Dominic West as Prince Charles in The Crown season 5.

West’s casting was generous PR for the gauche and stiff Prince Charles. The actor oozes sensuality unrecognisable in the now-King. It’s a charm that evokes sympathy even in The Firm’s most sordid chapters (yes, there’s an episode dedicated to tampongate).

Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana in The Crown season 5.

Though it’s Debicki as Diana, with her lilting elegance and palpable pain, desperate to reclaim her narrative and autonomy, who steals the show. 

The new season of The Crown is on Netflix now.