Netflix’s The Crown in regal blunder as it gets year wrong in Royal Variety Performance storyline
THE Crown has made a regal blunder by claiming the queen attended the Royal Variety Performance in the wrong year.
The episode in question featured a blue poster for the performance at the Lyceum Theatre in London dated as 1984 – but the Queen didn’t go that year.
Instead the Queen Mother, Prince Charles and Dianna went in her place.
But The Crown has used some artistic licence and showed the Queen, played by Olivia Coleman, meeting Joan Collins and Sarah Brightman, which did happen but in 1985.
The show’s creator Peter Morgan previously admitted that accuracy had to take a back seat for the sake of the plot.
He said: “My view is that an audience is so sensitive and has such fine instincts that, if an audience rejects it, then it's probably wrong. Even if you don't know the facts, you can smell when something is bogus.
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“We do our very, very best to get it right, but sometimes I have to conflate [incidents]. You sometimes have to forsake accuracy, but you must never forsake truth.”
Meanwhile Olivia Coleman is due to step down playing the Queen and will be replaced by Imelda Staunton.
In November last year, The Sun exclusively revealed the 64-year-old Vera Drake actress would be taking over the role of the Monarch in seasons five and six of the hit Netflix show.
The Crown cast completely changes every two seasons to reflect the different decades and ageing of the Royal Family.
Claire Foy and Matt Smith started out as Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip, while the roles are currently played by Olivia, 46, and Tobias Menzies.