The Crown hit a dull point in the unswinging Sixties

WHY was series two of Netflix phenomenon The Crown indisputably inferior to the first? Same cast (mostly); same writer; same production team. So why did it not pack the punch of the earlier programmes?

I think the answer’s obvious. Series one simply had much better material to work with. The Windsors of the 1940s and 1950s make for a scriptwriter’s dream. Think of it. Death of the King. Grief-stricken daughter flies back from her African honeymoon, dashing new husband by her side. Then the Coronation – and on TV too for the first time! Younger sister cruelly denied the love of her life by stuffy, repressive establishment. Philip’s (alleged) philandering. And so on...

But as the1960s dawned it all got… well, pretty boring. Not much happened. Everything settled down into dull routine. That’s why the last series of The Crown was forced to go down the soap opera route. All those rather tiresome and frankly tame rumours about the royals were storyline bricks made from straw: Margaret’s drinking, chain-smoking party lifestyle; Philip’s growing boredom; the Queen’s quiet sense of duty and faith in God. Not exactly electrifying history in the making, is it? More like humdrum episodes of Dallas.

But it’s bound to catch light again when The Crown reaches the 1980s. Why? Diana of course. It’ll be fascinating to see how the programme handles that fizzing stick of dynamite tossed into the House of Windsor. Charles and Camilla. Divorce. Dodi. Death in Paris. Crisis at home.

I hope the series deals with those events with the sensitivity they deserve, not least because of Wills and Harry. Barely 20 years have passed since their mother was killed and it’s to their credit – and their father’s – that they have emerged such fine young men. Diana was a passionate moderniser as well as a sheer volcano of a woman and her impact on the Windsors’ future direction of travel is incalculable. But The Crown’s dramatisation must be accurate, fair and proportionate. The story’s gripping enough as it is – it hardly needs sensationalising.