The Prince of Wales invites prime minister Sir John Major to a secret meeting to explore the possibility of becoming Charles III in 1991 not 2022. The Princess of Wales seduces heart surgeon Hasnat Khan by asking him to place his finger on her breasts and trace her valves and arteries. In a war within the BBC, the director general John Birt goes nuclear against chairman Marmaduke Hussey by agreeing to let Martin Bashir interview Diana for Panorama.
Season five of The Crown is business as usual: melodrama presented in lavish quasi-documentary style, carried by near-hologrammatic performances by great actors, now including Elizabeth Debicki’s Princess Diana and Imelda Staunton’s Elizabeth II.
But this run has one very significant difference. This time, episodes carry the following notice: “Inspired by real events, this fictional dramatisation tells the story of
