For someone like me, who has been an obsessive supporter of British kings for decades, the Crown is a regal delight to see. The series, which ends season four on Sunday November 15, doesn't do everything right, but it usually comes very close. It's easy to see that creator Peter Morgan and his crew carried out their research with all the energy of Sarah Ferguson who cheered rocker Meat Loaf at It's a Royal Knockout in 1987.
Accuracy has been a hallmark of the show all along, but the creators knew the limelight this season would be more intense than ever. Not only 1980s British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (played by X-Files star Gillian Anderson) play an important role, but the show had to cast, dress, and style an actress to look like perhaps the most famous woman of the 20th century: Diana, Princess of Wales. Get it wrong, and this high-class show could look like a hastily made Hallmark movie.
There are some wonderful accuracies that royal watchers will appreciate. Actress Emma Corrin might never look perfect like Diana up close - that famous face is too familiar - but from a distance she looks more like her than most actresses who have tried. Diana's pre-wedding car is right, a little red hatchback. The paparazzi that flood around her as she tries to go to and from her Earl's Court apartment are right.
Her ironic "Bluebird of Happy" engagement suit is perfect, as is Charles' mistake of "whatever" in love "means" when questioned by a journalist. They use Baby Prince William's real nickname "The Basher". Even Diana's bubbly, youthful handwriting gets it right.
That said, half the fun of a real-life series is thinking about where the details are pinned and where things go wrong.
Warning: Small spoilers for the fourth season of The Crown.Meet cute, but not so cute
On the show, Prince Charles is with Diana's sister Sarah before meeting Diana, and that's exactly how it happened. But the show calls for Charles, while waiting for Sarah one day, to meet 16-year-old Diana while she is dressed up as a "crazy tree" for a school production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. This scene feels like Hollywood. While the two likely met when Sarah and Charles were together, Diana probably wasn't wrapped in leaves and was bragging about her love for the play.
Sympathy for the prince
On the show, Diana meets Charles while he is standing in his convertible in traffic and simply walks up to him (no bodyguards in sight!) To tell him how sorry she is that Lord Mountbatten, Charles' mentor and father figure, was murdered. It is part of Diana legend that she sympathized with him over Mountbatt's death, but Diana herself reported that this happened at mutual friends in Sussex, England. According to Tatler, she also said, "He jumped on me and started kissing me and I was like, 'Urgh, that's not what people do.'"
Dear deer me
It's also unlikely that Diana teamed up with Prince Philip at Balmoral and they shot a stag together, as depicted in the second episode of the season. Although Diana reportedly presented herself as a more outdoor, equine species than she turned out, she probably wasn't that good an actress, proclaiming "the dirtier the better" and "a country girl at heart". ""
But that convinces her future father-in-law that she is the right woman to be the heir to the throne, so the scene works. And the pink sweater actress Emma Corrin wears when she leaves Charles is an exact replica of a famous sweater from Diana's early years. The customer keeps creating famous outfits and for those who know both Diana's and their own closet, it's rewarding and fun.
call me
Diana chooses her famous sapphire engagement ring, which although not made to measure, is in the catalog of Crown Jeweler Garrard. This fact is supposed to be a bit shocking because any citizen with enough money could wear the same ring model. (But if that was scandalous, why did Charles offer catalog rings as an option in the first place? As an American, I'll never get that.) Anyway, Diana supposedly thought the ring looked like her mother's, Frances Shand Kydd's, and true, some say it was because it had the largest stone. Prince William gave the ring to the Duchess of Cambridge when he suggested it to her, and modern photos of the Duchess make it easy to see how tall it is.
You see me rolling
Did Diana really walk the royal corridors while listening to Duran Duran on her Walkman? Corrin tells Tatler she thinks so, but I kind of doubt it.
Ironic eats
Apparently Diana and Camilla really did eat together at a Knightsbridge restaurant called Ménage à Trois some time before the wedding. That name seems a little too on the nose, no? But it was a proper place, and according to The Daily Mail, the menu was indeed specifically tailored for female diners, with no mains (because women don't like them?), Just starters and desserts.
Here comes the bride
Perhaps no wedding dress is as famous as Diana's giant marshmallow of a 1981 dress. The show didn't want to copy it entirely, costume designer Amy Roberts told WWD, but the lace, the bows, the weirdly flat front, the gonzo train - all of it fits to most people's memories. The veil doesn't look good, however, and another flaw seems to be more glaring.
Diana wore her own family's Spencer tiara, so legendary you can now buy replicas of it. However, the tiara for The Crown lacks the sleek simplicity of the Spencer tiara. Instead, it's huge and expansive, more like a cardboard Burger King crown. Maybe not a big deal to many viewers, but to royal watchers, it's like a movie about the New York Yankees with the famous "NY" icon appearing in Comic Sans.
Dance, ballerina, dance
Diana loved dancing, and it's true that in 1985 she sparked a surprise for Charles and danced on stage to Billy Joel's Uptown Girl at London's Royal Opera House. The crown nails this - Diana's chic white dress looks just like the one she wore, and the dancer she is paired with looks a lot like ballet star Wayne Sleep, her partner for the performance. Just like on the episode, Charles was reportedly unimpressed, thinking his wife was going to show off. Perhaps further proof that ballet-loving Di always had to be on the go with her husband.
