The Crown: The Official Podcast

CLIP: Charles and Diana argue-

…What were you thinking…

…The rest of us have been there for some time.

Series intro

Welcome to the Crown, the official podcast. I'm Edith Bowman, and this show will follow the fourth season of the Netflix original series The Crown episode by episode, taking you behind the scenes, speaking with many of the talented people involved and diving deep into the stories. 

Episode intro

Today we’re talking about episode nine, called Avalanche. 

It’s 1988 and Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s marriage is at an all-time low. After Prince Charles narrowly escapes death in an avalanche whilst skiing, Diana becomes determined to reconcile their relationship. However, the near-death experience has the opposite effect on Charles, who vows to find a way to be free of the marriage and be with Camilla.

We will cover specific events and scenes that feature in this episode. So if you haven't watched episode nine, yet, I suggest you do it now or at least very soon.

Edith v/o

Coming up later, we'll hear from the director of this episode, Jessica Hobbs. 

Clip from Jessica Hobbs

I love that moment where he's sitting by the pool because I feel it's a beautiful moment, but for him it's already over.

Edith v/o

We'll also hear from Ben Turner, from the visual effects team

Clip from Ben

Part of what I love is going back to the same location, but revamping it and giving it another layer of modernity each year. 

Edith v/o

And I'll catch up a show creator Peter Morgan on bringing it all back to the Queen. 

There's no substitute for going to the boss woman. It always anchors it when you go to her. 

But first let's begin by exploring episode nine of season four, by once again, picking the brains of the crowns head of research Annie Sulzberger. Now, We see three particularly shocking, true events portrayed in this episode. Diana's two onstage performances for Charles, as well as the terrifying avalanche that Charles was caught up in with skiing in Switzerland. 

I asked Annie how much danger Charles was really in that fateful day in 1988. 

Package:  

2:58

3:45

A: He was in very serious danger. Charles was a very good skier, but I think kind of risky one as were his friends who went with him, two of whom live in the area. So they knew the slopes well. This was an off piste run. So essentially the resort or whatever it doesn't vouch for the safety of it. You have to take your life into your own hands. I mean, it could have been him. Hugh Lindsay died and Patty Palmer Tomkinson was badly injured. It could have been him. He jumped out of the way at the right time, but it was an extreme risk.

And earlier that day, I mean, it's worth noting that actually Fergie was on this trip and she was pregnant and she had had an accident earlier that day and they'd removed her from skiing for the rest of the day, because obviously they didn't want to risk the pregnancy. So it's not like this was smooth sailing up until this point.

E: Has he ever talked about it publicly? Did he ever talk about it publicly and in particularly as well, losing you know, a close friend, Major Hugh Lindsay?

A: At the time, Charles did want to address the press directly afterwards but his aids felt that he might be too emotional for it at that point so a written statement got released instead. He did eventually talk about it in his collaboration with Jonathan Dimbleby in 1994, both in their documentary programme that they made and the authorized biography. And ultimately it was just clearly a very sad time for all involved. And we had to be incredibly sensitive. Hugh Lindsay at the time, was recently married and had a baby on the way, and both of those women live today. So we just had to be very aware of the fact that this extreme tragedy would have lasted feelings and consequences for others.

We've had it confirmed. The Prince of Wales is safe, Ma’am…

…And although we might expect to reprieve of a few days, given the circumstances, we can't expect it to last for long. Ma’am.

E: And this tragedy as well had a really personal effect on Diana and her perspective of the relationship in terms of how you guys portray it in this episode. In terms of the research on that and, and finding the tone of the journey that Diana goes through whilst this thing's happening as well. How do you navigate that and working out her kind of state of mind? 

A: Yeah, so most of our research material says that in this moment, Diana, because she was physically present, you know, not on the slopes, but she was in Klosters when it happened, she realized she's actually quite good in an emergency: I can handle this. I could be a good wife and good partner and help take care of people. I will take care of Hugh Lindsey's wife. I will ensure that she is compassionately, you know, supported throughout all of this. I think in times of crises, actually a lot of her heightened emotional state declines. It sort of is suppressed and all of a sudden this very rational go getter comes out. 

E: Her mothering instinct.

A: Yeah, exactly. You're right. Yeah. It’s a Mothering instinct. Yeah. I'm no longer afraid of spiders since I had my daughter. Um, cause if there one's coming at her that thing's gon’ die. I do think there's a really nice realization for her that she didn't have to play this kind of hyper emotional partner. 

E: We see these two different performances that are represented in different ways. And they happened, we knew they happened. So the dance at the opera house-

A: Yes. 

E: With Wayne Sleep actually happened in 1985. 

A: Yes December 22nd, 1985.

E: Two questions… 

A: Only two?

E: Well to start with. Why did she do it and how was it received by Charles? The rest of the Royal family and the public?

A: Okay. Why did she do it is such a good question because it tells you, I think everything about her. So and this is sort of where newspaper reports get us into trouble. Some say it's a belated birthday present for him because he's the patron of this organization that's having their gala evening and raising money at the Royal opera house. And others say it's at Christmas present. Wayne Sleep claimed that it was a Christmas present, but either way, she creates this as a gift for him. It is not a gift for him. It is the last thing, if you know Charles for five minutes, it's the last thing Charles would want. So really ‘it's a act for her. And we know it's her idea. Wayne Sleep speaks to the press and says it’s entirely her idea. The choice of the kind of dance that it was, it was sort of a mixture of like tap, ballet, there was a CanCan line at one point. And it was very flirty and fun and silly. The choice of song, which was Billy Joel again, not Charles’s kind of music.

E: Or Billy Jo-elle?

A: Billy Jo-elle one of the best scenes in the show, actually, one of the best research moments of the show, I think because we had gotten, I think we got on a zoom or something with Peter or phone call, before COVID. And he just said, ‘just to pull hands, who thinks that Phillip would know who Billy Joel was? Because I'd like him to correct her pronunciation, but I, if we feel it's a step too far, then we won't do it.’ We were like, no I think that's fine. One of the grandkids or something would have told him.

So she chooses the dress. She chooses the music, you know, she can't meet with Wayne Sleep until the day of the event. So they choreograph it with Wayne on the phone with her dance instructor who is physically present with Diana. And then he's communicating to the dance instructor, everything they have to do. And then they get an hours’ rehearsal before the actual show, which is why when you sort of watch bits of it and start piecing it together, it's more a kind of playful act than it is honestly like full dance. 

EB: Yeah. 

AS: She comes on, nobody knows this is happening, I think, except for Wayne Sleep and probably one other. And it's part of a huge variety show of opera and, and Morris dancing and, you know, acts of all kinds. And she comes on and it's a shock to everybody system. She gets eight standing ovations, I think. He, at one point, whispers to her ‘Bow to the Royal box’. And she turns and says why would I bow my husband? You know, it's my hubby. She does curtsy. And I think the press reports that Charles is clapping. He's, you know, putting on a brave face and smiling and, but privately, he’s seething and he thinks it was highly inappropriate of her to break Royal propriety like that. It's not protocol, but it's just like, we don't do this sort of thing. And I think he acknowledges it for what it is. This is not a gift for me. It's not music I like, you'd know that I don't believe in these sorts of displays. That was a gift for you. You're going to make the front pages. You're going to show how much you loved me. Maybe you put some marriage rumours to rest, whatever it is.

So I don't think it went over very well. I can't imagine how the other Royals felt. I don't think we know for sure, but I would say that Charles was raised a certain way. So if he felt that it was inappropriate, They most likely did too. 

E: Then she follows up with a private recording.

A: Yes. 

E: Tell us a little bit about the, the Phantom of the Opera recording. 

A: So three years later at a particularly bad point in their marriage, this is post avalanche, She decides she wants to do a similar gesture, but at least she's learned not to do it in public. If she's going to do it, then let's make sure that it's like one VHS tape (for anyone under a certain age that was pre DVD) And…and then at least Charles can decide privately if he wants to watch this again, or what have you. So she is obsessed with Phantom of the Opera. Obsessed with it. Since it came out, I think it started in ‘86 in the West end. She’s seen it multiple times, never with Charles, again, more of a gift for her than Charles I think. Uh, Charles does not like these kinds of musicals. She plays the CD constantly in her car, wherever she drives anywhere, singing along. She is completely bowled over by the kind of emotional story of Phantom. And she decides for their anniversary, she's going to stage the song, All I Ask of You, which is this sort of desperate plea to have a life of love and commitment with each other. And she rents the stage. She gets the actors, the choreographer comes in and does it…I mean, there were actually quite a few people in the room on the day, but very few people who've ever seen the videotape, I think, aside from that.

So we were able to read a little bit about how this came about, but it was staged. Some say it was choreographed, some say it was performed, et cetera. So we felt we had a little leeway on like, can we have her singing? Can we have her dancing? What, you know, what's going to be the most impactful in our show. And when we found out that Emma could sing, we thought, okay, even if Diana wasn't the best singer in the world and would have preferred to have danced this, we don't know, we have never seen the video. Let's have her sing it because it's going to break our hearts right?

E: So emotional

A: It’s so moving. And I think Emma brought that fragility to it…that Diana would have had, which is like, I'm confident enough to organize this whole idea, this whole concept of doing it, but when it comes to it, I'm still very vulnerable. And I think Josh probably got it spot on about how Charles reacted. I think he was rather um, embarrassed again at the display. And very happy that a single copy of this tape existed and it was now very securely in his hands, probably locked away somewhere, or like, like what we did with when Churchill got his portrait painted in series one, maybe burnt. 

What's so fascinating is it feels oddly like this is how Diana wanted to communicate her feelings to Charles. And that she couldn't just say to him in private, I feel desperately lonely. I need to know if you still love me. I still love you. And I want to make this work for our family. She had to go to the West End and put on a full costume and learn a song and a dance and do it that way. And you realize in these two moments, which is why I think the episode is so magnetic and impactful that this is why it's not going to work, because this is how poorly they communicate with each other.

E: But you don't think in a way that it was the only way that she, that she could communicate to him because he was not given her the opportunity to say. 

A: Yeah

E: We see this almost like montage of her, trying to contact him and he just ignores her. That this was the only way that she could try and get his attention and see what she needed to say?

A: In her mind, and if she had been presented with this video, it would have gotten her attention immediately and she would have understood the loneliness of the person making it, you know, it would touch her in the way that it was intended to. And the problem is ultimately that I think part of it is they don't know each other very well. And again, this is speculation my part, but Charles, to us, from what we've read of him is one of those guys who I think connects to writing. If you write him a letter and he can read it in his own time. He might be painting outside or gardening or, and sitting outside with his thoughts, which we know he does. He's he likes to sort of sit with himself and meditate. If I wanted him to read something or to, to hear me, I'd probably write to him and ask him to read it in his time. But that is not something that she connects with I think. She needs to sort of be smacked over the face with emotion and really like kind of brutally confronted with it.

Again, this is speculation from what we've read, but that's where that massive marital disconnect is. They don't know how to reach each other. And, and the great tragedy of it all is that they desperately need each other, but they're so similar in some ways. For us, these two moments were so… uh, sort of indicative of her personality. And I don't think we found anything else that could have so clearly stated this problem in their marriage, which is just sheer communication.

Here’s Jessica Hobbs to hear how Diana’s performance scenes were always going to be pivotal to the character's journey in season four.

J: Our understanding was that she'd done a dance for him that was filmed on the stage, in the costumes on the real set, ‘cause she loved the show and that she'd given it to him as a seventh anniversary gift. That's what we understood from research. So we extended that to singing. And when Emma came in and auditioned , Peter said to her, do you know, do you know the song? “Yeah, yeah, I do. And I sing a little bit.” So this young woman sang that song in an audition room. Full of producers and the casting agent and the, and for me, the reason I thought there was no one better for the role is that it wasn't so much what she'd done in the scenes, it was in that moment that she sang…she sang..it was, she was so vulnerable. You could see the redness in her cheeks. You could see the slight tears in her eyes, but the determination to front up and do it. And the self-belief, I just thought that's Diana, in that moment is Diana. 

E: Wow. 

J: Emma has trained to have quite a high level, and that was probably the most confronting for her. We don't need you to sing as the great singer you are, I need you to sing in character as Diana. Yeah. So the breathiness and the voice and the desire to connect with an audience and the naivety and the the desire to perform, to be seen at that so that was a big part of her nature and it was a wonderful part and people responded to it. So to help keep that on track, but the company turned up, we had two of the Phantom actors who've done every performance since it started, they'd been in it for 30 years. They were so wonderful. We had one of the current Phantoms onstage. They recreated the, the set we had falling snow, we had the exact costume that she wore. We had the full Phantom orchestra. The conductor from Phantom came and did it, the original conductor. It was really cool. 

E: I love hearing you talk about and seeing how you, your face lights up when you talk about working with your actors, working with Josh and Emma, both as individually, as Charles and Diana, but then also as a couple… 

J: As a couple. Yep. And in a triangle with Camilla too

E: Yes let’s not forget the third cog in that wheel.

J: You know, which is which Emerald was yeah, beautiful in her observance and her choices. It was fascinating. You know, Emma had to play a character - she's 24 years old - and she's playing someone who's been in arguably the highest profile marriage in the world for 10 years and had two children. To portray that level of damage and weight, when you haven't had access to that life experience is really challenging. And I, I love what she did and she was, you know, there was an anxiety for her around that, and it was like, but that's okay. All that anxiety and that trauma that you're feeling about playing this role feeds into what Diana was feeling, so lets just sit in that discomfort. Because you are allowed to use your naivety. She did. She did it really well. Um, in a way she was slightly coseted and, and, um, protected. She had this incredibly high profile position, but she was constantly surrounded by people protecting her. I found that was a really interesting thing to explore and Josh’s ability to not judge Charles and be incredibly truthful to his needs, even though at times his behaviour as a character is self-serving and aren't we all?

Very very rarely do people just want to punish other people, you know, maybe in a given instance or a certain short period of time, but that's not your overall plan. There was love. There was attraction. There were things that were in there. It's a conflict. You've got children, you've got things, but you know, you're a bad fit and he, he knew they were a bad fit. And I think even though she did, there was a romanticism in her and a kind of…

E: …desperation in a way. 

J: Yeah. In a fairy tale, she was so young. And why would you give up that, that notion of your fairytaleness so easily, and yet, sometimes things don't work out. You grow in different directions. I love that moment where he's sitting by the pool because I feel it's a beautiful moment, but for him, it's already over. And then she shows him her gift which was excruciating but - 

E: She tries everything!

J: She does! She does. That she can do. So she, rather than getting the note about public performance and understanding, even though that's what he said, that wasn't what he meant. He meant it, he found the whole thing. He was saying, can you try a different way to reach me? She just dialled it back and made it not public. It's like, no, he doesn't. 

E: All she wants is to impress him. 

I know horrified you were… 

… No public, no one watching. 

J: I think one of my favorite shots is the two shot of them on the couch and she's leaning forward and smiling at the performance and you just see him going and then he smiles at her, but you just see the horror, um

E: ‘Cause that scene in the pool, when he's watching, you do kind of see a glimmer of, of hope almost.

J: Yeah. He's looking at what he would lose, you know, there's two kids and her and yeah. She's a great person and they've built a life together and all of those things, it's a lot to consider what you would give up.

E: Camilla's kind of got such an interesting position and this as well, in terms of the way that Peter’s written Camilla and that she never makes any demands. She never really, he gives her opinion. 

J: Yeah. His, his understanding and our, research understanding of his from talking to people is that it worked the way it was, she didn't want it to necessarily be any more than the way it was. And that doesn't mean there wasn't love there and connection there. But our understanding was that she didn't want to be married. She also was very smart and she understood, she really profoundly understood. It's like, can you not, not put me line me up against there? 

E: Yeah. 

J: Because I'm old enough and wise enough to understand how that will play out. And particularly from a female perspective, you can just see the writing on the wall. Like, I don't need this. 

E: Yeah. 

Clip- Charles and Camilla

            What we both want and what we can actually do. And not the same thing…

…my love for you is real.

E: And it's interesting because Charles thinks that by, uh, going to his mother and father to sit down and kind of go it's over. And then Diana, because of what's happened and because of they've had these both opposite spectrum reactions to the near-death experience of Charles, they've both come out of it completely different opinions. But he has his flummoxed by her response in that meeting with them.

J: He’s furious. cause it says he saw a tiny chink, a tiny window of a way out, The queen even starts with I'm going to ask you the question. That's the given moment. And somehow she comes up with that.

Clip – Diana and Charles with the Elizabeth and Phillip

            I am ready to commit to anything, to go to any lengths…

…what else is there to say? 

E: Diana says I'm ready to commit to anything. I'll go to any lengths. And then the queen just like just literally chirps up. Okay, great. All good then let's go. Tea?

J: Yeah, exactly. I think she likes nice clean, you know, someone's made a decision. Great. Let's move on. 

E: No confrontation, please anyone. Thank you very much, like that.

J: In the Queen's favour. I think if both of them perhaps had said in that moment, no, we don't want to go any further. It would have been like, okay, how are we going, to let's talk about how we can move forward. But, um, I think in the way that scene plays out, as soon as she had one yes, she was away. 

We’ll hear more about the queen later in this podcast with show creator, Peter Morgan. But first it's time to shine a spotlight on a department to have a huge role to play in creating what we see on screen, particularly when, as with this episode’s avalanche, it’s not possible to physically film. 

I spoke to visual effects, supervisor Ben Turner, and I began by asking exactly what the visual effects team do.

B: Visual effects is the digital augmentation of a moving image, I suppose you might say. And so it's a CG stag, or it's an extension on a palace. So we might have, for our Buckingham palace, we've got, at Elstree: a railing, some Gates and an Archway. If we're doing a shot of the facade, for example. And so the cars drive through the Gates and they go through the Archway and they go into the courtyard and then we've got sort of like a 40 foot square, I suppose, of a set. 

And then everything beyond that is digital and is put in afterwards. Most people will call it CGI and some people call it SFX, which is not us. That's a different department. So SFX are the guys who blow stuff up for real. And then we are the visual effects department. So we blow it up in the computer.

E: Okay. Safety side of things. 

B: Yeah, exactly. Generally on the show, it's, it's always about adding scale and depth. And so we might film in the location that's that we're only gonna use a small part of, but then we know what we're gunna do with the rest of the frame. And so adding that depth and the scale to really tell a story.

E: particularly with visual effects I think we watched this show from the very start and we don't realize the layers that there are. Can you talk a little bit about the relationship that the visual effects team has with, with The Crown and how involved it is and how intricate it can be.

B: We're our own department on the show so we work alongside art department and cameras and lighting and everyone we're in, um, somewhat unique position, I guess, in that we're on from the start of pre production until the very end of post production

E: First in and last out, basically. 

B: Exactly. Yeah. 

B: Our job is to inject all of these things that can't be there or, you know, aren't there on the day, but sort of make it feel like they were and make that, that join seamless effectively. 

E: Now we've been lucky enough to be on set up at Elstree and there are incredible sets which create part of the familiar locations like Buckingham Palace or Downing Street, but every season you also have new landscapes, new places to creatively tell the stories really. Is that part of the excitement for you? 

B: Absolutely. That's why I keep coming back. And that's why I love it so much, is that it's really exciting every time, because we get a different era to recreate, a new world effectively with every series that we're trying to inhabit and create with our work. So part of what I love is going back to the same location, but revamping it and giving it another layer of modernity. Each year, we do that with the airports and season one, we started off with a little tiny airport shot down in Shoreham, but then we sort of, you know, made it into late forties, London airport with not much traffic. And, and now we're at Heathrow with multiple backgrounds. And jus - 

E: Or New York with Concord 

B: Exactly, or JFK, um, or Northolt, uh, you name it, we've done it. We usually get a new plane to play with every year as well. So that's always good fun to build-

E: New toys. That must be, yeah. I love the idea of being toys almost in a way-

B: Exactly, but then there's this, there is this sort of constant of the palace as well, running through, and part of why I love the show is that we've got this iron backbone effectively, and then this world revolving around it and constantly changing. I love that about, about the show and about, particularly about the palace as well. Like even though we have minor tweaks to it digitally, you know where you are with it, and it's just about shooting it in new creative ways and making everything feel period.

E: Have you ever had to CGI in or out a corgi

B: Uh, sort of-

E: Ooh, I was expcting you to go no, but I've heard that they can be quite temperamental, particularly if there’s different groups of them, if they're not from the same…

B: I think we have actually got rid of a slightly misbehaving corgi, but that wasn't actually walking where it should have been walking, uh, along with the footman and we just want it to do its own thing. So I think we, um, we just pretended it wasn't there.

And now let's catch up with show creator, Peter Morgan, about the all-important center of the Royal world, the queen. 

E: You always say that it's always going to come back to the queen. All the other storylines that are going on. Either side of her, it's always got to come back to her. Was that easy to maintain considering you have this behemoth storyline of Charles and Diana?

P: It's interesting that you say that because with Charles being the next in line and therefore Charles being the, I mean, as it were the next person to wear the crown. He definitely is starting in adulthood to count as almost a co protagonist, whereas his own preference is born out by the fact that you don't really care about the fringe members and that the story has a natural way of gravitating towards the Queen, Charles, William. But now I've started finding that there's no substitute for going to the boss woman. It always anchors it when you go to her. 

E:Yeah. 

P: It's challenging to keep going back to a character who is inscrutable. Keeps her opinions to herself, and has made saying less, not more, a way of life and a way of survival. You want to go back to a protectiveness to explodes or, or pushes things on or, or is propulsive. But it is interesting every time you've got her face in closeup, you do feel you're at the heart of the show.

Clip- Queen and Prince Phillip

Apparently she surprised him with a dance last night at the opera house… 

… Honestly the rubbish you talk sometimes 

E: I love how you've written the queen in this season, in terms of the confidence that you've given her in, how she deals with so many situations. You know, she makes us a little quip to Phillip about the ballerina and just that little comment, it just says so much about her confidence. 

P: Again, the difficulty you've got is how do you show her being really, really confident in herself and in her job, because don't forget in the first couple of seasons, you've got a young woman at the time, played by Claire Foy, suddenly thrust into this predicament being out of her depth most of the time, or at least trying to navigate, how do you handle a world which is controlled by a lot of much older patronising men. And then don't forget in the nineties, there were very, very challenging times, and headlines, and it was the first time that the monarchy and the queen herself had polled as negatively as she had. And I'm talking about profound criticism of the institution itself, the way that it costs taxpayer money. Was it not just proving to be worth the money, but I had it earned its place, was it fit for purpose? 

E: Yeah.

P: In the early nineties, Briton’s asked themselves that really seriously I think. So that's a long, long winded way of saying in seasons five and season six, in the midst of all that criticism, we've got somebody who is unconfident and the same way as in seasons one and two, she was unconfident. And therefore I felt it was appropriate in seasons three in particularly in season four to show a confident queen. And yet that partly does involve her being more front foot and more outspoken than I suspect she sometimes is. Here is somebody really comfortable and confident with being queen by this point because she's been queen for nearly 40 years and she's good at the job. 

Clip- Queen and Prince Phillip 2

            Now much more importantly, who is Billy Joel…

…what are you talking about? 

E: There are so many brilliant, beautiful, really light moments of tonal shift. Particularly with Olivia and Tobias, light relief almost to everything else that's going on. 

P: Well you are you going back to mum and dad, coming back to mom and pop. It's a mom and pop business in the end. I agree with you. And I also think that in the second season of these couplets, where you have two seasons with each cast: in the first season, you're a bit discombobulated, you're just trying to get used to them. And in the second season, they come back as old friends. And I think that the enjoyment of watching Olivia and Tobias as a couple by now, you're really settled into it. And one of the great pleasures I think of the second season, so season four in this instance is the familiarity with which you see them and they really really, they're like a pair of leather shoes that have been worn in, you know, they really know what they're doing now.

Clip- Queen on marriage

            I asked you here today, because word has reached me about the difficulties you're experiencing… 

…Does either of you no longer want this marriage to work? 

E: Let's talk a little bit more in depth about Charles and Diana, the kind of Greek tragedy that we, we already know the outcome of obviously, but how was it to write that storyline? In terms of how this event, this avalanche threw at them two very different honesties about where they were and what they wanted. And we see Diana in this episode begging for his attention through these performances that she gives for his birthday and…it's heart breaking to watch. 

P: Yeah. Yeah. 

E: But it's so good to watch. 

P: And then of course also the dance with Wayne Sleep. 

E: Yep. 

P: I was really nervous before writing princess Di. I always thought there were certain people that were un-writeable, but obviously I have now written her. And I think maybe only really got the confidence once I saw Emma. I suddenly thought, gosh, maybe it will work. Maybe one can write her. And then it's been interesting writing the failure of a marriage. And I've got a lot of sympathy for Charles in that sense and his predicament. I mean, he, he was in love with someone else beforehand then felt he had to do this. I've got a lot of sympathy for Diana too. So it's full of possibilities when you have equal levels of criticism and sympathy for characters. Both Diana and Charles, they're unfortunate because despite their incredible qualities and they both are deeply impressive alphas, they spend a lot of time undermining themselves and they are the agents of their own destruction or misfortunate too. And it's touching because I think at some level she never stopped loving him. There's something very touching about that.

Edith VO - Outro

I'm Edith Bowman and my special thanks to our guests on this episode, Annie Sulzberger, Ben Turner, Jessica Hobbs and Peter Morgan.

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

Join us next time when we go behind the scenes of the final episode of season four called ‘war’. 

While Thatcher’s cabinet turn on her after a decade in power, Princess Diana finds a new confidence with the success of her first solo royal trip to New York. Both women seek support from the Queen, but will they accept the outcomes?

Teaser Clip 

….Power is nothing without authority…

….try doing nothing for once. 

Edith VO