The Crown's production designer Alison Harvey has revealed that a murder investigation was almost launched during filming for season five.
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In February this year, it was reported that thieves had stolen £150,000 worth of antique props contained in three vans on set.
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In a recent interview with Variety, the set decorator revealed that the police initially treated the crime as a murder investigation after a dummy corpse was found floating in the river.
"I think the most amusing bit was the police were treating it as a murder enquiry because one of the dummies, the prosthetics, was floating face down in the river next to where the theft had been, so they immediately thought 'We’ve got a murder,' but actually it was just a rubber body," she said. "That took a bit of time to work out."
Production designer Martin Childs added that finding the antiques "was not their priority because they [thought they] had a murder to investigate".
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Alison also explained that the dummy corpse, which was worth £13,000, looked exactly like a real dead body. "It was absolutely identical to a naked [dead] person," she said. "It was probably quite alarming for the police actually when they fished it out."
Thieves stole £150,000 worth of antique props from the set of season five
Most of the props stolen from set related to episode six of the upcoming season, which looks at the relations between the British royals and Soviet Russia. Among the 200 objects taken was a replica of a rare Fabergé egg which was acquired by the Queen’s grandfather, George V, in 1933.
Alison said it was "a shame" because "it was some of the loveliest antiques that we could actually get our hands on because we were trying to recreate the Russian Imperial family and the wealth of ancient Russia".
She added that none of the stolen items have been recovered by the police.
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