Season five of The Crown will release in a few weeks on November 9, and is set during Queen Elizabeth’s reign in the 1990s. The latest television posters show Diana, played by Elizabeth Debicki looking away from the camera and standing separated from the other characters.
The latest poster shows Imelda Staunton as Queen Elizabeth wearing a regel-looking dark blue dress, white gloves and a sapphire tiara.
The fictional version of the Queen is shown looking directly at Ms Debicki’s Princess Diana, who is wearing a sleek white dress and looking down at the floor, appearing solemn.
On the right of the poster is Dominic West who portrays the then Prince Charles, who appears grim while wearing a tuxedo and is looking in the opposite direction of Princess Diana.
One of the posters shows a crack on the wall which separates Princess Diana from the other two characters, while the second poster shows a tagline which reads: “A house divided”.
The latest series has sparked controversy as it is set to release shortly after Queen Elizabeth’s death and will dramatise a series of controversial moments within the Royal Family.
It has been rumoured that new storylines within the series will showcase Prince Phillip pursuing an affair with a friend of the family Penny Knatchbull while complaining about his marriage to Queen Elizabeth.
The fictional version of Prince Charles will also be portrayed as being disloyal to his mother and attempting to get the Queen to abdicate.
Sir John Major, who was Prime Minister for seven years in the 1990s, had criticised the plotline as “a barrel-load of malicious nonsense”.
READ MORE: William enraged by The Crown’s depiction of his parents ‘all-out war’
A spokesman for Sir John Major said: “Sir John has not co-operated in any way with The Crown. Nor has he ever been approached by them to fact-check any script material in this or any other series.”
Sir Malcolm Rifkind, the foreign secretary while Sir John was Prime Minister, called the plotline “pathetic and absurd” while a friend of the King, broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, said: “The Crown is full of nonsense, but this is nonsense on stilts.”
Netflix has responded to the backlash, and a spokesperson for The Crown said: “The Crown has always been presented as a drama based on historical events.
“Series five is a fictional dramatisation, imagining what could have happened behind closed doors during a significant decade for the royal family – one that has already been scrutinised and well-documented by journalists, biographers and historians.”
DON’T MISS:
The Crown blasted as ‘odious’ and an ‘absolute disgrace’ [REPORT]
Here’s everything we know so far about The Crown season 5 [REVEAL]
John Major calls The Crown a ‘barrel-load of nonsense’ [INSIGHT]
Dominic West, the actor who plays Prince Charles has defended the show and said the plotlines were only “imagined” conversations and stated he was “evoking” the King, and not actually imitating him.
William Shawcross, the Queen Mother’s official biographer, has called the show “deliberately hurtful” and accused the creator of the show, Peter Morgan, of “a campaign of abuse” against the Royal Family.
The teaser for season five of the Crown shows the characters Prince Charles and Princess Diana appearing to get ready for media interviews, which hints that the show will depict the controversial Panorama interview in which the Princess told journalist Martin Bahhir “there were three of us in this marriage”.
Last year, Prince William said he wished for the interview “never be aired again” and that it had brought him “indescribable sadness” that the interview had contributed to the “fear, paranoia and isolation” that Princess Diana felt.
Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, has said The Crown should display a warning before each episode, and said: “If a programme is purely fiction as this series of The Crown obviously is, in the name of fairness and transparency it should clearly state so.
“It’s quite bizarre that it would feature people who are alive today but are bound by protocol and unable to rebut false impressions and invented scenarios, knowing that many viewers would believe them to be real.”