The Crown season five is the show's most controversial yet, with plenty of famous faces criticising the show as it enters the 1990s era of the Queen's royal, which was a famously troubled time for the royal family. So what have people said about it? Find out here…
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Dame Judi Dench
Judi criticised the new series, suggesting that it was time to include a disclaimer confirming that The Crown is a work of fiction and not reality. She wrote: "The closer the drama comes to our present times, the more freely it seems willing to blur the lines between historical accuracy and crude sensationalism.
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"Given some of the wounding suggestions apparently contained in the new series — that King Charles plotted for his mother to abdicate, for example, or once suggested his mother’s parenting was so deficient that she might have deserved a jail sentence — this is both cruelly unjust to the individuals and damaging to the institution they represent."
She added: "No one is a greater believer in artistic freedom than I, but this cannot go unchallenged. Despite this week stating publicly that The Crown has always been a ‘fictionalised drama’ the programme makers have resisted all calls for them to carry a disclaimer at the start of each episode."
John Major
The former Prime Minister called the show "a barrel-load of nonsense peddled for no other reason than to provide maximum – and entirely false – dramatic impact". His spokesperson told The Guardian: "As you will know, discussions between the Monarch and prime minister are entirely private and – for Sir John – will always remain so … They are fiction, pure and simple. [The scenes] should be seen as nothing other than damaging and malicious fiction."
Jonathan Dimbleby
Broadcaster Jonathan said that the show "is full of nonsense, but this is nonsense on stilts".
Sally Bedell Smith
Royal biography Sally told the Mail on Sunday: "This programme is doing significant damage to people’s perception of history and their perception of the Royal Family. It has been packed full of malicious lies from the beginning but this level of abuse is now beyond the pale."
Defence of the show
Peter Morgan
The series' creator, has opened about the extent of the criticism, saying: "I think we must all accept that the 1990s was a difficult time for the royal family, and King Charles will almost certainly have some painful memories of that period. But that doesn’t mean that, with the benefit of hindsight, history will be unkind to him, or the monarchy.
"The show certainly isn’t. I have enormous sympathy for a man in his position – indeed, a family in their position. People are more understanding and compassionate than we expect sometimes."
Elizabeth Debicki
The star, who plays Diana, told Variety: "The amount of research and care and conversations and dialogue that happen over, from a viewer’s perspective, something probably that you would never ever notice, is just immense. From that very first meeting [with] Peter, I knew that I’d entered into this space where this was taken seriously [in] a deeply caring way."
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Sir Jonathan Pryce
The actor, who plays the Duke of Edinburgh, revealed he was “hugely disappointed” by the backlash from his “fellow artistes” about the show. He told Deadline: "I'm hugely disappointed by my fellow artistes… the vast majority of people know it’s a drama. They’ve been watching it for four seasons.”
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