RETURN OF A ROYAL FAVOURITE

Netflix blockbuster The Crown has an all-new, all-star cast for its long-awaited third series

Olivia Colman didn’t consider herself a fan of the monarchy. Then she watched The Crown. By the time she had won the job playing Queen Elizabeth II, taking over from Claire Foy, she was besotted with Her Majesty.

‘I am so slightly obsessed that it has become almost unbearable,’ she whispers. ‘I wasn’t ever a monarchist but the Queen is an incredibly impressive human being. She made a vow as a very young woman to serve her country, which is an extraordinary thing to do, and she’s stuck to it.’

The Netflix series, one of the most expensive dramas ever made, has been extraordinary itself for many reasons. It’s won a heap of awards. It made stars of its actors. And it has helped the world see the royals in a completely new light.

Now it is starting all over again with a new cast for the middle decades of the Queen’s reign. From the start the plan was to have different actors take the story forward. ‘You can’t ask someone to act middle-aged,’ the show’s creator Peter Morgan says. ‘Someone has to bring their own fatigue to it.’

The third series opens in 1964, when it was revealed Anthony Blunt, the Queen’s distant cousin, was a Russian spy. It will cover the funeral of Churchill,

England’s World Cup win and the

Aberfan mining disaster in Wales. Charles Dance appears as Lord Mountbatten, while Helena Bonham Carter has taken over from Vanessa Kirby as Princess Margaret. Helena is one of the few to have met her subject. ‘My uncle was very close to her,’ says Helena. ‘She was pretty scary.’ In one of their encounters, at Windsor Castle, Margaret asked her about her acting work. ‘She said, “You are getting better, aren’t you?”’

The Durrells star Josh O’Connor and Call The Midwife’s Emerald Fennell portray the young Charles and Camilla, and creator Peter says he wants to look at one of history’s most famous love triangles in a new way. ‘People assume Charles cheated on Diana with Camilla,’ he says. ‘It’s absolutely the wrong way round. He was deeply in love with Camilla and forced to marry Diana.’

Netflix, from 17 November