Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
WE GO BEHIND
Picture the scene… Margaret Thatcher and husband Denis are at Balmoral, stony faced as the Queen and her family persuade them to play Ibble Dibble, a boisterous drinking game that involves being dabbed on the face with a burnt cork.
Add the fact that Thatcher is being played by X Files star Gillian Anderson, who you never dreamed could look remotely like the Iron Lady, and you have one of the best scenes from the new season of The Crown.
The Mirror was on the set to watch some of the filming and talk to the cast, and creator Peter Morgan. We have also seen every episode of the fourth series, which kicks off on Netflix next month. Jealous? You should be.
This series picks up in the late 1970s and covers a tumultuous decade, with the Queen, again being played by Olivia Colman, and the Royal Family at the centre of drama and turmoil.
Prince Charles meets and marries Lady Diana Spencer, Margaret Thatcher becomes the first female Prime Minister and clashes with the Queen, the IRA assassinates Lord Mountbatten, and Argentina invades the Falkland Islands, leading to war in the South Atlantic.
The Queen’s dealings with Thatcher are key to the new series. Anderson, 51, says: “A large part of it is about her relationship with the Queen, which was challenging because they were alike in some ways and very dissimilar in others.
“And I think the differences sometimes were infuriating for both of them. We address that tension between them quite a lot through the entire series.”
At one stage Prince Philip, played by Tobias Menzies, 46, warns the Queen: “Two bears can’t live in one cage.” And Denis Thatcher (Stephen Boxer) comments: “Two menopausal women.”
When the Thatchers visited the royals in Balmoral they found themselves completely out of their depth, mortified by that game of Ibble Dibble.
Anderson, who is in a relationship with writer Peter Morgan, describes it as a “famously challenging first visit to Balmoral”. The Thatchers were apparently so confused and repelled by the royals’ behaviour and love of blood sports that they left early.
Anderson says: ”I think Maggie Thatcher expected that there would be a lot more seriousness and cultural and political conversation about everything when she was there. That’s not what her experience was. I think that was a real shock to her. The country was in deep
trouble, and for them to be spending that amount of time away playing games, she just couldn’t believe it.”
Emma Corrin, 24, who plays Diana, says: “They play these stupid games and they love them.”
Peter Morgan, 57, relies on sources close to the royals to tell him secrets and details. For series four, he says: “We had a lot of interesting people knocking on the door wanting to tell us things.”
One episode deals with Michael Fagan, the intruder who broke into Buckingham Palace in 1982 and sat on the Queen’s bed to tell her his troubles.
Another episode tells how Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter) uncovered the fact that two of the