‘We have to stop it now!’ says Princess Margaret (Helena Bonham Carter), smoking another cigarette, obviously. She’s talking about the impending royal wedding between her nephew Charles and a pretty but gauche young thing called Lady Diana Spencer. Spoiler alert: none of the family will listen.
Yes, The Crown is back on Netflix for its fourth season, and naturally I skipped straight to the episode that will be of most interest to everyone: the royal engagement and its aftermath. Why is this subject so grimly, pruriently, enduringly fascinating? Because even though it really did happen and many of us remember it vividly, it yet has the fantastical implausibility of the kind of stories we read as children: Cinderella meets the macabre tale (‘Be bold, be bold, but not too bold’) of Mr Fox maybe.
Quite often when watching The Crown I find myself wanting to shout at the screen: ‘That never happened, you bloody pinko troublemaker.’
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