Game of throne: who wins The Crown?

Ahead of the final series, we look at who has had a boost and whose reputation has taken a battering

2023-11-11 - By James HALL

PRINCE CHARLES

Weedy and needy is how our nowKing first appears in The Crown (played by Josh O’Connor). But as the series have progressed, his character has become more stately and empathetic. Under Dominic West, Charles has been humanised to a degree few might have foreseen. Occasionally grumpy? Of course. But there’s abundant compassion there. The scene in series five in which he visits Diana and expresses regret over their divorce – even apologising at one point – is a tour de force of nuance and selfreflection. Obviously, it ends in an argument. He’s not that saintly. He is, however, deeply human. A good quality in a monarch. He even comes out of the ghastly “tampongate” pretty well, the old romantic.

PRINCESS DIANA

Ironically, given the above, Diana – whether played by Emma Corrin or Elizabeth Debicki – also comes across well. She’s played as neither victim nor villain, but rather she’s a fish out of water battling the royal blob. Quick-witted, gently rebellious and disarmingly eccentric, Diana comes across as a complicated and once-cosseted soul who’s remarkably frank about the situation she finds herself in. When she tells Philip that she feels trapped in a “frozen tundra… an icy, dark, loveless cave with no light or hope anywhere”, it doesn’t come across as overblown. It’s just Diana. “I never stood a chance,” she says. She is still the TV Queen of our hearts.

PRINCESS MARGARET

National treasure alert! Margaret is the party-loving princess whose happiness is thwarted by her mean older sister’s tedious adherence to “the rules”. Whether she’s bashing out Red Hot Mama at a piano in a feather boa and top hat, riding pillion around London on the back of Tony Armstrong-Jones’s motorbike or dancing around her bedroom in drunken torment to Ella Fitzgerald’s Angel Eyes, Margaret is the semi-tragic royal we’d all love to knock back an Old Fashioned with. She’s played brilliantly across the decades, whether by Vanessa Kirby, Helena Bonham Carter or Lesley Manville. Proof that we all love a party animal who stays true to themselves (take note, Harry).

MOHAMED AL-FAYED

Morphing from Egyptian street vendor to member of the British establishment in just 52 minutes, Mohamed al-Fayed was portrayed as an heroic immigrant in the series five episode Mou Mou. Infatuated by the Duke of Windsor, al-Fayed yearns to become “a British gentleman”. And, boy, does he succeed, by financing the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, buying Harrods and renovating the Duke and Duchess of Windsor’s former villa in Paris. Played with vim by Israeli actor Salim Daw, al-Fayed is the bruised outsider who finds a kindred spirit in Diana. No phoney pharaoh here – few have been humanised more by the show.

WINSTON CHURCHILL

When Winston Churchill first meets the young Queen in the opening series, he condescendingly tells her how to do her job. Bumptious and imperious, John Lithgow’s Prime Minister still thinks he’s the father of the nation. By the time of his death two series later, he and the Queen have developed a strong relationship and the initially bizarre casting of Lithgow turned out to be a masterstroke. He admits to having been a “terrible bully”; she calls him “the greatest Briton”. As he fades away she kisses him on the forehead. It’s TV’s most touching kiss-on-forehead since Kevin Whately’s Sergeant Lewis bid adieu to John Thaw’s Inspector Morse back in 2000. And the saga of Graham Sutherland’s portrait in series one is a true heartbreaker.

LOUIS MOUNTBATTEN

Prince Philip’s uncle – aka “Uncle Dickie” – comes across as the House of Windsor’s de facto agony uncle. Played by Greg Wise then Charles Dance, he emerges as a trusted confidante and mentor to both the Queen and Charles. The Queen speaks to him about her marriage problems, while he advises – and argues with – Charles over his relationship with the then-Camilla Shand. Uncle Dickie’s 1979 murder by the IRA while on a boat trip in County Sligo, Ireland, provides the devastating emotional backbone of series four. In the real world, allegations have swirled for years about his private life. Here, he’s the sanest Windsor in town.