ANDY THE pin-up prince

After Prince Andrew was forced to withdraw from public duties following last year’s disastrous Newsnight interview about his links to Jeffrey Epstein, the new series of The Crown will serve as a reminder of just how high his stock once was.

‘It’s hard to believe, given recent events, that Andrew [played by Tom Byrne, left] was the absolute pin-up of the Royal Family at the time of the new series,’ says creator Peter Morgan. ‘He was a rock star prince who then went to fight in the Falklands War.

‘He was by far the most popular one and everyone at the time thought, “Can’t we just remove Charles and give his title to Andrew?” It was quite tricky to write his scenes because we couldn’t show we knew everything that would happen to Andrew, but we still had to sow seeds so that you know that one day it could all go a little bit naughty.’