The Crown: The Official Podcast

Courtier: Your Majesty, your Royal Highness, a letter from the Prime Minister.

King George: Can't it wait? 

Courtier: Concerning their Imperial Majesties, the Tsar and Tsarina of Russia. The government is willing to send a ship to bring the Romanovs to safety here in England. The Prime Minister does not wish to do so without your support. Public perception and so forth… the war.

Shall I go back with a yes? 

King George: To their rescue? Show it to your mother, her judgement is unfailingly better than mine.

Edith Bowman: Welcome to 'The Crown: The Official Podcast'.

I'm Edith Bowman, and this is the show that follows the fifth season of the Netflix series, 'The Crown', episode by episode. We take you behind the scenes, speaking to many of the talented people involved and diving deep into the stories. 

Edith Bowman: Today we are talking about episode six, titled 'Ipatiev House'. 

Communism has ended in Russia, and President Yeltsin is keen to rebuild ties with the UK. The Queen takes this opportunity to try and resolve a tragic chapter in royal history by giving a proper burial for Elizabeth and Philip’s relatives who were murdered in the Russian Revolution. But is a shared goal and a historic trip enough to reconnect the distance that is growing between her and Philip?

We’ll cover specific events and scenes that feature in this episode, so if you haven't watched episode six yet, I suggest you go do that now or very soon.

Edith Bowman: But first, I sat down with the director of this episode, Christian Schwochow, who I was lucky enough to speak to on the first series of this podcast.

I wanted to know what it was like coming back to the show after a few years away.

Christian Schwochow: A bit like coming home.

Edith Bowman: Nice. 

Christian Schwochow: I mean, I stayed always in touch with Peter and with Suzanne Mackie, who's one of the producers of the show, and we kept talking, and of course I watched season four that I didn't work on, but of course, I did other things meanwhile.

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Christian Schwochow: So, it was like coming back to a family because so many of the great people who work for 'The Crown' are still here. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. It's a massive team effort, isn't it? That's what we've discovered. Why did you wanna come back? 

Christian Schwochow: I got a phone call from Peter Morgan, and he said, 'Look,' well this was one of the typical Peter Morgan calls, to be honest. He said, 'Look, there's this one episode that only you can direct.'

Edith Bowman: Wow.

Christian Schwochow: So, of course, 'Okay, tell me more.' And that was Ipatiev House, episode six of season five, which is quite epic. It's a story that's probably something we haven't seen on 'The Crown' before, and it goes back until the year 1917, Russian Revolution. 

As you know, I'm, I'm from East Germany, so Russia has always played an important role in my childhood. And, without Russia, without Gorbachev, the Wall probably would've never come down.

So, there's a very close relationship to Russia. And now in the current climate, we were shooting when Putin start war against Ukraine, which we didn't know when, when, when Peter reached out.

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Christian Schwochow: But the conflict was already quite strong and visible. So, I found that fascinating, and then when I asked, 'Okay, what's the other episode?'

And, it was Charles' divorce, I felt absolutely intrigued. So, I didn't take me long to say, 'Yeah, I'm coming back with pleasure.'

Edith Bowman: It's wonderful that Peter you know, he knows who's, who's matched with these stories, with these specific episodes and you know, his scripts are, are, are, are kind of dense and, and so detailed. But when you read that script for the first time, did, did it start to kind of create in your head how you saw it and how you wanted this episode to play out? 

Christian Schwochow: No, that comes very late. I mean, I think I have to read a script more than 20, 30 times before I really start creating a vision. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Christian Schwochow: I read it first and I of course always envision something or actually quite a lot I guess, but that's not the vision that comes to screen later, because I need some time to get behind the words and find, find myself in, in each of the stories.

‘Ipatiev House’ is so epic, it actually took me a while to find out it's, yes, it is about Russia, it's about the, the, the Romanov Family. But actually it's a story about the Queen, and this is something that's not so obvious when you read it for the first or even the fifth time.

And, to be honest, I think this clear conclusion I got as we were shooting. 

Queen Elizabeth: Is that all you have to say? 

Prince Philip: Sorry I'm late. That's all. 

Queen Elizabeth: What for now? 

Prince Philip: Flight to Munich, then to Hamburg for a Duke of Edinburgh award ceremony, followed by a World Wildlife Fund event in Brazil, then Alaska, Canada, and then back to London.

We managed to combine it all with a couple of carriage driving competitions too. Ah, here it is. 

Queen Elizabeth: Don't you ever get tired? 

Prince Philip: Only by sitting still, we're different that way. 

Queen Elizabeth: Yes, more and more different.

Edith Bowman: This episode, 'Ipatiev House', it’s a pretty kind of brutal start to, to this episode.

Christian Schwochow: Finally, some blood on 'The Crown'.

Edith Bowman: What was your vision for, for this sequence, for this particular opening, opening sequence and? 

Christian Schwochow: The writing was already very explicit without giving away too much. But it's like, two stories kind of fudged together.

It's King George and he's on a, on a pheasant shoot. As we can see, the Romanov Family woken up at night and taken down to a basement, but then a firing squad gets into the room and, 11 men with guns, and they, the family gets killed in a very violent way, as you say. It's very well described in diaries of the soldiers, so we had a very strong reference for that shooting. 

Edith Bowman: Wow. 

Christian Schwochow: So, we knew it's the family and, and staff. So, there were 11 people that need to, that should get shot. So, it was 11 Bolsheviks with, with guns. So, and each was, each of them was assigned one family member. So, it's kind of with the help of Annie Sulzberger and research, we  kind of got a very clear idea how it had taken place. 

Edith Bowman: Wow. 

Christian Schwochow: What's always important that it's not Bolsheviks who are like dark, angry man. Tsar family, like an evil dictator who deserves to be killed. 

I read a lot about the Romanovs and each of the family members, and, I also read a lot about the Bolsheviks who were sometimes very young guys like we, we put this very young boy kind of into the groups of the Bolsheviks, who he can't say no at this point, he has to kill the youngest daughter. But we see his inner fight because it's something he would, he would probably never tell his mother, that he, you know… So, there's those, those details that we don't explain, but it's all part of the work and all part of the preparation.

Also, what I really loved is working with the Russian actors because all the actors that you see in the sequence are Russian, and they were very dedicated to those characters, and they wanted to get it accurate and right.

And we had long conversations, which is great that we are given this time when we work for 'The Crown' and everybody really cares. I've been on productions where you feel like, 'okay, Christian, if you want to be accurate, do it, but we don't really care.'

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Christian Schwochow: And this is the opposite. 

Edith Bowman: Having these two time periods in this one episode, is that a, a luxury as a director? Or is it, or is it just more work?

Christian Schwochow: In the first place, I'm a storyteller. I don't need big costumes, big sets in order to feel happy as a director.

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Christian Schwochow: But inside the storyteller, there's always a little boy who wants to play and wants a lot of toys. So, the more, the better, but only if the story is right. 

But it's exciting, it's fascinating, and, you know, I have very strong memories about the early nineties, and how it felt to live in a Communist country that had just overcome Communism. So, that was exciting to kind of even, you know, I, I'm not from Russia, but some part of it were like recreating my childhood.

Edith Bowman: Wow. 

Christian Schwochow: I love that.

Queen Elizabeth: Mr President. I stand here today as the first British monarch to ever set foot in Moscow. You are the first democratically elected leader in Russian history. Thanks in part to family ties, there has always been a strong bond between our countries. 

Edith Bowman: The thing that Peter always says to us is that everything has always got to come back to the crown. Elizabeth in this particular episode, how would you describe her journey in, in this episode? 

Christian Schwochow: I think we sense very early in that episode that it's a time where Europe is facing a massive change.

The fall of Communism's been, well, was the biggest political event of those days and those years, and then we see a royal couple that is kind of living a life in the past. And the story with Ipatiev House and Boris Yeltsen getting into power and coming to Moscow feels like it could be their thing, it could be Elizabeth and Phillip’s journey. 

So, she's getting really excited about going there with him, but then has to find out over the course of the episode that he's leading a very, very different life.

I think it's a very grown-up story with a lot of loneliness and a lot of sadness. But also, I, I guess we do get a bit behind the mechanics, how they actually ended up staying together for so many years. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. How is that for you working with them both? 

Christian Schwochow: Amazing. Amazing because, I mean, I haven't had any bad experience on 'The Crown' with anybody. Having such experienced actors, both with a lot of experience in theatre they both carry so much weight, so much confidence, and of course, because all my lovely colleagues had shaped their characters before I came, there was, there was so much lightness, about the way we could work together, even though the scenes were about, were so heavy.

Edith Bowman: It's interesting with Philip as well, because we obviously, you know, as you say, we get these wonderful scenes with him and Imelda but then we do see almost a different Philip in this friendship and companionship that that develops with Philip and Penny, which is a delicate situation to, to kind of navigate for many reasons. But how did you approach directing this companionship with the actors? 

Christian Schwochow: Just like you said, what we were focusing on was the intellectual companionship. We didn't want to suggest that it was anything else. What I like about 'The Crown', we're not interested in like tabloid scandal. 

Edith Bowman: Headlines, yeah. 

Christian Schwochow: In the headlines, exactly.

Edith Bowman: We’ll hear from Christian once more a little later.

This episode is full of incredible historic detail, not only from a different century, but from a different country as well. The start of this episode features the shocking execution of the Romanov Family in 1918, a story which then connects us to the British Royal Family today.

I sat down with Head of Research for 'The Crown', Annie Sulzberger to chat more about the historical context of this episode.

Edith Bowman: Where do you wanna start with this time?

Annie Sulzberger: I know when I was, when I got the questions through and I looked at it, I went, 'Oh God, I'm gonna have to explain World War I, I I'm gonna have to explain the Russian Revolution, and then I'm gonna have to explain how all of the Royal Families all over Europe come from one gene pool. So, okay, big things. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Annie Sulzberger: So we start, it's 1917, World War I started in 1914, Google World War I. But I will just give you the bare bones, which is that Russia and the United Kingdom are allies along with France, for example, and the United States later, and their enemy is Germany, along with the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Annie Sulzberger: Now 1917, is the year that the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which is what Windsor was known as, becomes the House of Windsor. So right there, you know that there's a lot of German blood in the British Royal Family. There's obviously a lot of anti-German sentiment because we are at war with them and the decisions made that they can no longer be called by a German name, so they become the House of Windsor. 

Annie Sulzberger: And the anti-German sentiment is very important part of what happens to the Romanovs. At the same time, because of World War I, you have a massive loss of life in Russia and people are starting to, there has long been obviously socialist, sort of sentiment and anti-monarchy uprisings over the years, and they decide, and Nicholas, Tsar Nicholas II agrees it's time to step down and abolish the monarchy.

Annie Sulzberger: So, the monarchy is abolish in, in, I think, March of 1917, and that follows the February Revolution, which is the first part of the Russian Revolution and the Provisional Government that takes over, it's not socialist, it's made up of all the aristocrats, it's made up of all the, the wealthy capitalists of Russia.

So now the, the question is what to do with these people? And whilst they, the Provisional Government, is very sensitive to the sort of Romanov situation, at the same time in response to this government forming  you have what are called Soviets, which are like grassroots community organisations coming up. Those are the socialists. So pretty much quite quickly after the February Revolution, you have these two parallel groups of power, I suppose. The Provisional Government is technically in charge. So no one knows if they're really in like full danger yet of an any kind of assassination because the Provisional Government is quite sympathetic to them. So they start asking around, who will have them? 

Edith Bowman: This is the Royal Family? The Russians?

Annie Sulzberger: Yes, so they, so the pr, so the Provisional Government. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Annie Sulzberger: Starts, reaches out through their ambassadors to the British government and says, 'For the duration of the war, would you take the Romanovs in exile?'

The British government takes the request to the British Royal Family, and at first they say yes. And then they realise the impact that that would have, which is all it's gonna do, is bring anti-monarchy sentiment to this country, which already exists, there's a wave of socialism happening. The British people do not want these people here and the House of Windsor would seriously be in threat.

Annie Sulzberger: And the government also feels they start to kind of wobble, and they feel like we're at war, Russia's our ally and by this point it's very clear that Socialists are probably gonna take over, there's gonna be a Bolshevik Revolution, which happens in October. And if we take them, that's exactly the opposite of what that new government wants from us. 

Edith Bowman: Siding with the old one?

Annie Sulzberger: And we, we are right now, we need to keep Britain unified, we're at war. We need to keep everybody feeling like this is the right thing to do. The Great War was so shocking; The loss of life, a whole generation of men, the men who returned, returned to nothing. You know, you just, keeping the British on course was important, but also that the Tsarina was, was German, and people felt that she was German in sympathy still to this day. So they feared the consequences of providing these people to exile.

They rescinded the invitation. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Annie Sulzberger: So, and then they started, they actually ask France, Would you take them? Spain, would you take 'em? And they're like, nobody wants them. Germany really, the German Royal Family was their best bet through the Tsarina, but they can't because they're at war with Germany. 

So, and the Romanovs at the start don't wanna go anywhere. They don't think their lives are at threat. They just think they have to step down from power. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Annie Sulzberger: They're gonna go live in a dacha somewhere, it's fine. And then the October Revolution happens, the Bolsheviks take over, it is now a Soviet, it's the Soviet Union of Socialist Government.

And what we have now is the Civil War extending from that between the Whites and the Reds. The Red Army being the Bolsheviks, the, the, the White Army being the, you know, sort of former pro monarchy group, the capitalists, the wealthy of the country.

And now the, the fam-, the Royal Family who had been sort of moved about a bit, are placed in Ipatiev House under house arrest. And it is when the White Army is approaching, which the Red Army doesn't want to have happen cuz they will probably free the Romanovs and keep them safe, they decide that they need to be executed. So they take them downstairs, they tell them they're taking a photograph for, to prove that they're still in captivity and they are very, very brutally murdered.

It's shocking to see the pictures of the, the wall after the firing squad. It's a 12-man firing squad and three of the girls essentially ended up having Kevlar on because they had diamonds sewn into their dresses so they could carry some wealth with them if they ever needed it. And it bounced the bullets back off. So, it just meant that the firing squad just ramped up and then they used, you know, the butts of their guns, the bayonets. So, it was unbelievably brutal assassination. Nobody really knows what has happened, they know, obviously they've been executed they believe, but there isn't, nobody knows where their bodies are for a very long time.

So, we, we know for example, that George wobbled, King George V, after he made the decision and everybody agreed with him that it was probably the right decision not to bring them over, but it's his family. So national, national matters are, and you know, at odds with personal matters. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Annie Sulzberger: And he tries potentially, you know, this is, it's a theory, there is some evidence to, to substantiate it, but it still hasn't been fully proven. There are rumours that he tried to make some sort of secret plans for the sort of British sec, early secret services to get him out, to get the family out, and also when he did get other relations after the War finished over, so aunts and uncles who'd obviously survived, weren't part of the group that was in house arrest, he gave them stipends to live in Britain, he got them citizenship. So clearly, he felt a quite a grave responsibility for what had happened. 

Edith Bowman: And he is what relation to our Queen?

Annie Sulzberger: He's her grandfather. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Annie Sulzberger: And his wife is Queen Mary, who you met in series one, the amazing Eileen Atkins played her and probably one of the most influential royals in terms of training Elizabeth how to manage her responsibilities and to be the kind of royal that she will set out to be for the rest of her life. 

Edith Bowman: How do you, how do we know all this, this detail about, about what happened? 

Annie Sulzberger: About what happened? 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Annie Sulzberger: So there are, you know, there are actual records from the executioner, and starting in ‘24, I think there was a book published in ‘24 that detailed what they believed happened, which was pretty spot on. Ipatiev House was actually demolished by Yeltsin. He is the sort of like district politician, and they task him with getting rid of it because it's becoming a pilgrimage site in the late seventies for these sort of new wave of monarchists. And the socialist government will not have it. 

Annie Sulzberger: So, he demolishes the house and for many they think, well, the bodies are actually buried there. They're not. They're buried in the nearby forest, and two years later, these, a geologist and a filmmaker who come together and they've read this book from 1924, they looked at this photograph in the book which just shows what looks to me like a muddy puddle, and they're convinced that's the pit with the bodies.

So, they go and they investigate it on their own and they find three skulls and they put them back because the political climate at the time would not, no one's gonna be thanking them for having found the Romanovs. So, they put 'em back and then they have to wait until essentially the USSR crumbles. 

Annie Sulzberger: And what we know is that when Gorbachev, who's through Perestroika…

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Annie Sulzberger: Transforming the Soviet Union, into a democracy, when he comes to visit the Queen in 1989 on a state visit, he says, 'Will you come and visit Russia on a state visit?'

And she says, 'Yes, but we would like to have some information about the whereabouts of the Romanovs first.' And these two guys thank her because they believe without her putting pressure on Gorbachev, they would not have been allowed to dig up the bones.

Edith Bowman: How did she know? 

Annie Sulzberger: So, the rumours about some of this stuff and, and her grandfather's role in it in the seventies, I think a book is published in 77, but it's 1983 when Kenneth Rose gets access to Windsor Archives and he does a much deeper dive into the this story than any other historian has done yet.

And he figures out exactly what happened in the order of events, in terms of the asylum, the, the granting, and then the rescinding of the asylum. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Annie Sulzberger: And the manuscript is presented to her. One of her private secretaries says, 'You should not let him publish this. They'll hate you for it because it's, it suggests that there's a lot of very concrete evidence that your grandfather sealed their fate.'

And then Fellowes who's her current Private Secretary, who was quite low down in the private secretary pool at the time is very pleased and she on her own back, her own judgement, just writes in the top, 'let him publish' and refuses to censor any of it. 

Annie Sulzberger: And so from ‘83, she knows what her grandfather decided, the role that of advisor that her grandmother played in that decision as well, you know, and essentially what that they are in some ways obviously responsible for the fate of Romanovs. 

So, she's aware of all of this and she's aware that the bones have yet to be found and that the, the house had been destroyed. So when the political situation turns into their favour in Russia, so, 1991 Yeltsin becomes the first elected president of Russia. It changes from the USSR to the Russian Federation. It is now a democracy. There is an attempted coup, which we show from the hardliner socialists, and Communists that fails and Yeltsin restores Gorbachev, they share power for about six months, but then he sort of uses that as a way to sort of say 'your time is done. It's, it's really for me to move Russia forward now'.

Annie Sulzberger: And the day after he is brought in as President, inaugurated as President, he authorises the exhumation of the Romanovs. So these guys, the two guys who found the bones way back in ‘79, lead a team, and they uncover them and, and that's where the start of our, 'All right, we gotta identify each and everybody. Philip, turns out you're the key story' comes in. 

Edith Bowman: So, Annie, we've already talked a lot about the historical moments we see in episode six, but as well as historical depth, your team also investigates character detail, and we see so many of these little things pop up in the show.

So, in our question for today, I've gotta ask, does the Queen really eat snacks out of Tupperware? We see her eating cheese and grapes in front of the TV. I love this scene.

Annie Sulzberger: Here's where we took some creative licence, and it's not in the Tupperware, it's what she puts in the Tupperware. So years ago, a fake footman joined the palace, essentially to become an insider, to take pictures for the newspapers. And one of the pictures he took was the breakfast room, and in it you realised there's things like cereal and granola and things like that in Tupperware. So where we took a lot of creative licence was saying it's not breakfast, it's snack time. But yes, she uses Tupperware.

Edith Bowman: I just love the idea of the Queen having like 'guys, it's snack time'. That would be amazing.

Annie Sulzberger: It's really so that they can be autonomous, like they don't need to call in staff all the time. Things can just be there; they can access them when they want to and they won't go off.

Edith Bowman: Later in the podcast, I will speak to Production Designer Martin Childs, but before that, in this episode, we really see the growing distance between the Queen and Prince Philip as their differences become more apparent. 

I sat down with writer Peter Morgan to talk about this, but first I wanted to find out what it was in particular about the story of Ipatiev House that drew him to writing an episode on it.

Peter Morgan: Well, when I found out that Prince Phillip had been involved in giving the DNA, so again, you can tell a story about the past or you can tell a story that takes you in a different direction if somehow it intersects with, which is how we did the story of the moon landing, because I found a rationale in my own head that said that because the Duke of Edinburgh was a pilot, that he would've had a particular interest in in the astronauts and their, you know, achievement and their training and and so forth.

And here in this one, when I found out that it had been due to the developments of DNA testing, when, when that the Duke of Edinburgh had been involved in unlocking the mystery of the murder of the Romanovs, I thought, 'gosh, you know, that's fantastic.' But of course, just that alone would've left quite a dry episode.

Peter Morgan: And, and in the end, that episode for all its window dressing about being about the Russian Revolution and the murder of the Romanovs and solving that particular mystery. In the end, it, it turned into an episode about the Queen's marriage and, and loneliness within a long marriage in which people are very different and they have different interests.

And that's really what the episode is about. The, the rest of it is just providing an interesting drawing room in which then to have that conversation, you know, it, it, and I, I, I also was, I'm interested in the Queen's grandmother, Queen Mary. I'm interested in her story and her life, and it was an opportunity for me to also try out what it felt like looking at the palace through the eyes of, of people in, you know, in, in the very early part of the 20th Century, you know, that was just around the time of the Russian Revolution. And don't forget, the set would be exactly the same, so the location would be the same, they'd be at the same breakfast table as they are now. And that appealed to me, that you could go back three or four queens in the space of one episode.

Edith Bowman: The visual element of this episode, and particularly how it starts off as well, you know, it's, it's, it's got a really incredibly powerful, quite brutal tone to it. How much of that is kind of, you know, on the page to start with for you in terms of how you want this episode to kind of hit quite hard to start with as well?

Peter Morgan: I think I wanted, cuz don't forget it's intercut with shooting all the birds. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Peter Morgan: And, and that was always part of the writing. The way the director Christian Schwochow directed it, it came out, I, I think, I think the, the slaughter of the Romanovs came out more brutal perhaps than I'd imagined when writing it, but I loved that.

Edith Bowman: Yes, it's great. 

Peter Morgan: And, and I think that's where, you know, I'm working with really particularly gifted directors and, and I'm very rarely on set, and they interpret things, and they have the freedom to do that. And then of course we look at it again in the editing room and there would've been a choice in the editing room whether to take it down or to stick with it.

But I mean, I was really excited about going with it. And I don't think I had many comments when the editor and the director had cut that sequence together. I just looked and went, 'Wow' you know?

Prince Philip: Just one of our many differences.

Queen Elizabeth: How else are we different?

Prince Philip: After 47 years of marriage, we might ask ourselves, how are we still alike?

We've got different interests, different passions, different churches. I'm more energetic.

Queen Elizabeth: More restless.

Prince Philip: More curious. Your desire for calm, for stability, for silence. Not to question, not to probe, not to...

Queen Elizabeth: Provoke.

Prince Philip: Interrogate, has sometimes left me...

Queen Elizabeth: What? 

Prince Philip: Lonely.

Edith Bowman: There's a, a fantastic showdown scene between Philip and Elizabeth in episode six, which mirrors one way back with Claire and Matt on the Royal Yacht. 

Why did you wanna include this? There's almost similar kind of dialogue, almost similar kind of themes, I guess, in those conversations. 

Peter Morgan: And you know that those two scenes come with about a 40-year gap between them. And I think it's only reasonable that people discuss their marriage once every 40 years. 

But because I've always thought that The A Storyline of them, of, of the, of the show is their marriage, at least it was certainly in the early seasons. It, I don't think it is now. I don't think it is in seasons five and six.

I do think that the, The A Storyline in five and six is, is a succession drama in that sense, you know, is that Charles has suddenly reached this age and he's so capable.

Edith Bowman: Confidence.

Peter Morgan: And confident, and I look at it from both sides. I look at it from his side, and I, I really feel for him to be, you know, the, the flip side of, 'Oh my God, we've just had the longest running monarch', that means we've also had the longest-waiting next in line. And that's not an easy job to, you know, none of them have an easy job because the position we put them in is so invidious. So, all of them, whether they're in the in, in the hot seat or if they're just in the outer rings of flunkydem right, they all have an impossible, an impossible predicament, I think.

And I certainly wouldn't want to have been Prince of Wales for 70 years and the season five and season six is him, you know, really pulling at the champion at the bit. 

Edith Bowman: Now when we watch 'The Crown' on Netflix, it can be hard to believe that it's not filmed in the real palaces and places where the scenes are set. When I was lucky enough to go on set, I saw Diana's apartment and it was breath-taking, there was so much detail in every part of the room. 

And this season is not just based in the UK, we travel to Egypt, Russia, France, and to different time periods as well. There are so many different sets, and they are all flawless. At the head of it all is Production Designer Martin Childs, and I was so excited to speak to him about the sets for this season. 

Edith Bowman: Martin, welcome back to the podcast. Yay, we got you back. 

Martin Childs: At last, it's good to see you again. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah, you too. Season five. 

Martin Childs: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: What do you think about when you think of season five? Does it have an overall kind of, I think of...

Martin Childs: I think of how much we travelled, how much we travelled in the story whilst trying to keep the travel down to a minimum in real life. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Martin Childs: Like I, what I think about is, is how North Yorkshire became Russia and how Spain became Egypt. Yeah, that's what I think about and how I think we probably managed it.

Edith Bowman: You definitely did manage it, yeah. We're a new era with a new cast, is it... 

Martin Childs: That's right, yeah.

Edith Bowman: Is it always exciting for you when you do have a new, you know, group of, of actors to inhabit these worlds that you help create? 

Martin Childs: That's always, that's always extremely exciting, cuz you know what, I think one of the keys for me is to, is to place Imelda where we've seen Claire and Olivia in the past. So, to actually place them in a place that the audience is used to, kind of gives it a bit of, bit of visual continuity, and we get to refresh the set, you know, inevitably Buckingham Palace gets refreshed, but it's in real life.

But at the same time, we need to keep it continuously looking the same way, but so we can make some subtle changes. And that's one of the great things about having a 50-hour drama is that our changes can be subtle. 

Edith Bowman: Well, that's the thing is that I think the layers to this show, you know, we talked about this before, and the idea that, yeah, there are familiar locations that we might have seen in previous seasons, but there are tweaks to them. There are things that have changed to...

Martin Childs: Yeah.

Edith Bowman: To drive the narrative. 

Martin Childs: Absolutely. 

Edith Bowman: Drive the mood, to drive the period, to drive the character. 

Martin Childs: That's right. I mean, things like the, the, the, let's call it the maturing of, of Princess Margaret, for example, you know, from her, her Tony and Roddy days, she still has a bit of a rebel streak, but she's settling down, but settling down in, in, decorative terms in ways that wouldn't suit Buckingham Palace, you know? 

We keep her separate. So, she, she has this fabulous sort of aubergine coloured bedroom that, uh, works well as a kind of counterpoint and, and, and equivalent really to, to the, the pink dress that she wears when she goes off to meet Peter Townsend. 

Edith Bowman: Oh, don't, I'll in tears in a minute. 

Martin Childs: We were, we were, we were, the whole set was led by Amy's dress.

Edith Bowman: That's amazing. Have you got a favourite set from season five? 

Martin Childs: I think my favourite ones are always the ones that I don't know, the ones that represent the biggest challenge, and at the end of it, we think 'God we got away with it.'

Edith Bowman: What was that? 

Martin Childs: So, the, I mean the, the, the burning down of Windsor Castle for a start was something of a challenge. And the fact that Britannia expanded, I should think, sixfold from previous seasons. So, Britannia was spread over a backlot set, two sound stages full of scenery, a real boat for all the understaff where Philip goes and taps instruments and things, and then it is placed digitally in the landscape, the seascape.

So, yeah, I suppose there are five or six different ways of conveying Britannia and so the challenge there was to make it all feel like one thing.

Edith Bowman: Well, the thing that I always find kind of blows my mind slightly is the idea that, you could have an actor walking down a corridor somewhere. 

Martin Childs: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: And then they walk into a room and that could be in two different parts of the country.

Martin Childs: That's right. I was only yesterday, I was explaining to a director that if you go up that staircase and make a right, you'll finish up 20 miles north of here somewhere else. 

Edith Bowman: That's amazing. 

Martin Childs: And it's over five seasons, the, the directors have obeyed that kind of instruction, it's the only instruction I ever give directors.

But it kind of works cuz it, they know that it's gonna make a whole world in the end when, you know, if Tony Blair, whatever, or John Major turns right somewhere, they'll finish up somewhere else. 

Edith Bowman: That's, it's like, it's like some kind of Tardis. I love it. 

Martin Childs: It is. It is indeed.

Edith Bowman: So great. 

Martin Childs: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: But the wonderful thing about 'The Crown' is that the marriage of those two things of sets and locations.

Martin Childs: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: Are they of equal importance, would you say? Do they, because you know, there's, you are in new places. 

Martin Childs: I think they are. Yeah. I mean, we have to, we go to some pretty spectacular locations and therefore we have to build sets that are equal to those, so the sets are inevitably big and expensive. But also at the same time, it's pointless going along, going to a location to shoot something small, you know?

So, so we tend to build things like that and things where emotional and intimate, intimate stuff happens, then it's, it's useful to have, to have built it, you know, to, to contain it. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Martin Childs: Where, you know, there's less chance of, of paparazzi and public.

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Martin Childs: Finding out where we are. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah, that must be hard.

Martin Childs: Yeah. Yeah.

Edith Bowman: Harder and harder, I imagine every season.

Martin Childs: Yeah, it is. Well, it's great for me because, you know. People will say, you know, we, we need to build this. And I think, ‘Yeah, great. Let's build it.’ Cuz it's always a, a bonus for me to...

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Martin Childs: To build something rather than schlep off and find a location that doesn't work, compare it to a location that works a bit better.

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Martin Childs: And then eventually you do find the right location. But you know, they work equally. They work equally and they work in balance with one another, I hope. 

Edith Bowman: What would you say has, in terms of location had the biggest transformation this season? Is there…

Martin Childs: That has to be Windsor, that has to be Windsor on account of burning it down, which is a, you do, tragic thing to have to do.

Edith Bowman: How do you do it?

Martin Childs: Well, we, I decided in, at the beginning and everybody agreed that it would be a good idea to, to take the biggest room that we had used in Windsor and the one in which we'd had the most emotional involvement. Therefore the one where Elizabeth and Philip, when in the days when they were Olivia and Tobias were trying to persuade Josh and Emma to stay together. And it's also contained birthday parties, it's contained all sorts of scenes that have become pretty important. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Martin Childs: So, we thought, and just because it happens to be the biggest set as well, this would be the great one to burn down.

It also has some very distinctive features. It has some wonderful sort of spiral sort of, barley twist columns in it. At first, I thought, ‘Dare we ask the location to make it look as if their location has burned down.’ And then I didn't even posit that idea. I thought, you know, that idea stayed in my head and then I thought, we, we, what we need to do is build it.

So, we were able to take this perfect thing in Burleigh House, this perfect environment and build a burnt-out replica of it. Because it had such distinctive features, we were able to have sort of gnarled and broken versions of them and, chandeliers that had fallen and things like that. So, we were able to build this really unpleasant, and also it needed to be a wet environment as well.

Edith Bowman: Yeah.

Martin Childs: Because you can't really ask that of a location because if the roof's caved in and the fire brigade have been there, it's inevitably gonna be full of puddles as well.

Edith Bowman: Let's talk about episode six, 'Ipatiev House'. 

In this episode, we not only go back in time, but we also go to Russia. Where do you start with something like that?

Martin Childs: I think, again, I started off with the detail of the, of the Romanovs being woken up prior to their tragic end and their sleeping arrangements were closely observed and closely replicated.

I was always on the lookout for the sort of downhill-ness to the basement, and always on the lookout for staircases and confined spaces where they could be pushed and directed and prodded, and we finished up actually building the basement itself on account of what happens in it. That's not something you can do on location, and also something you can't find on location because every basement in the world is being used for something else, so we wanted ours to be the basement of Ipatiev House a hundred years ago. And so we, we built it on the sound stage, weirdly next to Princess Margaret’s bedroom. It’s an odd thing those juxtapositions.

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Martin Childs: That the schedule forces you into. It was sandwiched between Princess Margaret's bedroom and the interior of an aeroplane. 

Edith Bowman: Wow. 

Martin Childs: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: We talked about collaboration and about how everyone has a voice really to contribute to things. And how close, if at all, do you work with the cast? 

Martin Childs: I've personally barely have time to. I've known Imelda before, we've done a lot of things together. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Martin Childs: The first thing we worked on was Kenneth Branagh's film 'Peter's Friends' 30 years ago. 

Edith Bowman: Wow.

Martin Childs: In the very house where we shoot the audience room scenes.

Edith Bowman: No. 

Martin Childs: So, there was a certain shared memory of that. But I have time to kind of get to know their likes and dislikes, get to know what they might want. But I'm with five directors and five blocks on the go. I'm barely ever there. I try to be there for the opening of a new set, but I'm barely ever there otherwise.

Edith Bowman: The season overall feels a lot darker, kind of thematically, but also visually than previous seasons as well. Is that a fair comment? 

Martin Childs: That's a fair comment. And it was a conscious thing, but we didn't push it too far. You know, I talked about the sudden realisation at the end of season four that things were getting a bit seasonal, and that we were about to enter autumn. 

And one of the best things I saw on TV during lockdown was a really wonderful production of 'Uncle Vanya', and so Ipatiev House did become a bit Chekovian. You know, I took colours from it and I started doing a bit of Chekhov research and Amy and I started looking about, and funnily enough, Amy watched that too that same production. 

Edith Bowman: And you mentioned it briefly earlier about the idea of Bradford becoming Russia.

Martin Childs: Yes. 

Edith Bowman: In the 1990s. 

Martin Childs: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: What's the journey of that, you know, from where are we gonna shoot it? How are we gonna shoot it? And then to doing it? 

Martin Childs: Our wonderful location scout, Peter Gray, went to Bradford thinking it would be a good idea.

And he also went to various other places. I think he went to Dundee; he went to Glasgow. Bradford felt the most containable. And also, it happened to be close, close enough to another part of Yorkshire where we were shooting ‘Ipatiev House’ and a third part of Yorkshire where we were shooting the interiors of the Kremlin.

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Martin Childs:  So, it all came together as a package because it was in the same part of the world. It had a bit of, for once of a less pretentious word, 'terroir' about it that, that Yorkshire could become our Russia. And it did, and that the, the desaturated colours and the returning to a place called Duncan Park in the very north of Yorkshire where I shot a show called 'Parade's End.'

I remembered it and I remembered the sort of cold dusted, almost bleakness about it, but it also has a weird charm when you're actually there. But, I thought that bleakness together with Frank Lamb's lighting would make a wonderful Ipatiev House and a, and a ghastly opening to, to that episode. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Martin Childs: And again, that's another example of, of a craziness that happened that, that inside Ipatiev House there was this absolutely beautiful room that we could turn into a bedroom, it's actually a dining room. And the schedule needed a scene in Windsor Castle with Elizabeth so, we shot it there. So, inside Ipatiev House, there's a little bit of Windsor Castle.

Edith Bowman: That's great. I love it. 

What's it like though, in terms of, you know, a design side of things, been able to span decades?

Martin Childs: It sometimes becomes a bit bewildering and I'm getting a hell of a lot better at delegating

Cause the other wonderful thing is that I've had the same team throughout the whole thing and they all know the way I think, and so I'm better able to delegate than I ever used to be. I'm less frustrated about not being there than I used to be. Yeah.

Edith Bowman: I love the, the, what you were talking about earlier, about watching Chekhov and, and another piece of creativity has inspired you. 

Martin Childs: Yes. 

Edith Bowman: Your design mind for your own production that's lovely to think about. Particularly with different cultures, what does your research kind of normally involve? 

Martin Childs: I watch a lot of films actually, because, although I do a lot of research in books, it's films that show things briefly.

It's films that need to show things in 30 seconds, that a book would take several pages to describe, and we've only got a few seconds to establish things. So, things like it's not a very good film by Hitchcock standards, but 'Torn Curtain'. The minute they, they went into the sort of Eastern Bloc things became desaturated and browner, and I thought, ‘Well, that's a good way to go. Let's try that.’

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Martin Childs: Yeah. And it did work because we had to establish things pretty swiftly. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. Season six is being done right now. 

Martin Childs: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: And it's, that's it. 

Martin Childs: Yeah. 

Edith Bowman: How does that feel? You know, is it like… You know, is it like... 

Martin Childs: It feels, I feel very sad. My body feels relieved. My brain is extremely sad. 

Edith Bowman: That's a big exhale. I mean, there's so much in this episode. 

Christian Schwochow: Well, I have to say there's quite a few moments that I really, really like. I really love the big scene between Philip and Elizabeth at the very end of the episode.

I got COVID when we shot on season five, so I had, we had to stop filming, but then it couldn't be stopped for 10 days.

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Christian Schwochow: So, my colleague, May el-Toukhy took over and directed a few scenes, and then my First AD Finn McGrath did a few scenes and I directed over the phone. 

Edith Bowman: Yeah. 

Christian Schwochow: So, sat in my living room, I would have two monitors, being on the phone. But we had to leave like big scenes where a lot of acting was involved for later.

So, I think Jonathan's and Imelda's big scene at the end was one of the last I did for that episode before we wrapped. I just loved that day doing this scene, which is so emotional and there's so much anger and so much misunderstanding and then understanding and I get his point and that's what always interests me most, that there's a conflict, but you understand both parties involved. That's what, what I love probably the most about 'The Crown' as a director, having those long scenes with two or three actors and nothing else, it's just them. It's the performance, it's the writing.

Edith Bowman: Theatrical, isn't it?

Christian Schwochow: It's, it's very theatrical. And very often when you read the writing, the conflicts are not so… They never shout. They, they never, they never slap each other. It's, it's, and a lot of emotions stay, stay behind. That's a, that's a great challenge and that's probably what I love the most as a director and I think in this scene, it went really well.

Edith Bowman: I'm Edith Bowman, and I want to give special thanks to our guests on this episode, Christian Schwochow, Annie Sulzberger, Peter Morgan, and Martin Childs. 

'The Crown: The Official Podcast' is produced by Netflix and Somethin' Else in association with Left Bank Pictures. 

Join us next time as we go behind the scenes of episode seven of season five titled 'No Woman's Land'. BBC Journalist Martin Bashir is willing to go to any lengths to secure the scoop of a lifetime, but will his deception convince Diana to tell all? 

Hewlett: But why would she talk to us? The Yanks can fly her around the world and pay millions into a charity of her choice. What can we offer her? Sausage rolls from the BBC canteen? 

Martin Bashir: But that's the point. The BBC canteen, not CBS or ABC, the National Church, trustworthy.