A crowning achievement

Everyone knows the delicious feeling of being so spellbound by a film that, for a while afterwards, our own world jars. Colours look insipid, people’s clothes seem odd. One longs to dive back in. That’s when the magic has worked, that’s the prize. And jewel-bright, often gilded, and frequently as beautiful as a tank of tropical fish sashaying past our feasting eyes: that is The Crown, hundreds of whose costumes and props will be offered by Bonhams in The Crown Auction in February.

This visually stunning series views like a photograph of British history across decades and continents coming to life, but interwoven with the searing agony of palpable emotions and scalding heartbreak.

In some films, the settings can seem a bit sparse or ad hoc. Things wobble that shouldn’t. But not once in The Crown. Clothes, voices, places, rooms, and things – thousands of things high and low, from chairs, beds, tables, paintings, prams, pianos and polo sticks; down to cups, china corgis, decanters, wicker dog baskets; then bunting, binoculars, a bespoke barbecue (designed by Prince Philip with folding legs to go in the back of a Land Rover) – all feel right. Set Decorator Alison Harvey recalls the endless things she sourced online or bought elsewhere, or had made, season by season, to achieve this verisimilitude – “I even bought a bag of rust,” she says. And, set among all the things that counterpoint daily life, are stories known and new that ring completely true. They sing.

How was such authenticity achieved? Most of us thought we knew at least some of this story that twines through our own, because we had been there, or watched it on TV, or read about it, sometimes decades ago. But we also knew that much more went on behind closed, gilded, doors and glittering palace façades; within high-walled gardens; private jets, ships, and cars. How was this chronicle of British life, stretching from the early 1950s to easily within living memory, made so utterly believable?

Because viewing figures for the six seasons of the multiple-award-winning show demonstrate that we do believe it. Some would even say they learned more about the period than at school, and in a much more appealing way. Viewers in 88 countries watched Netflix’s smash production, made by Left Bank Pictures in glamorous locations including private country houses and estates, but also, in very large part, at Elstree Studios, a 15-minute train-hop north from London, behind a pair of unremarkable gates next to a Tesco superstore in Hertfordshire – Elstree, where Alfred Hitchcock made the first British talkie in 1929.

Andy Harries, who set up Left Bank Pictures in 2007, worked with the brilliant writer and creator Peter Morgan and the fêted Stephen Daldry, the director for the first season. They knew early on they had a massive success on their hands. “The writing is extraordinary and compulsive; the characters are incredibly believable, rooted in a reality researched in unbelievable detail by eight researchers. It’s done with enormous passion. I always felt we were doing something really good – and the rushes were extraordinary. I had a strong sense then that it would succeed, but one didn’t know then what Netflix would become. When we began, Netflix wasn’t yet global. But at the Golden Globes [for Season 1 in 2017], we got an amazing reaction.”

Stay updated with our auctions. Sign up to receive your weekly newsletter of global auctions, stories and more from Bonhams and our sister companies. Subscribe now

Then there’s the settings. Take Buckingham Palace. That stately double staircase on which revelatory moments occur; the Queen’s bedroom enfiladed with Prince Philip’s, scene of so many tender, prosaic or angry private moments; the private Audience Room with its yellow-upholstered mahogany chairs and canapé, and the bell the Queen presses when she’s had enough of the prime minister of the moment; the Picture Gallery down which Princess Margaret storms, unaware she’s about to be forbidden Peter Townsend. Surely all real. But no: location; standing set; location; location. What of the ship Britannia, inside and out? “Not a real ship,” Gene D’Cruze, Head of Construction, says with satisfaction. Surely, the inside of the royal jets? No again. A jet section was in gigantic Stage 5 the entire time, its interior dressed, stripped and dressed again by Harvey and her team.

The sets segue so perfectly with real doorways in real houses that one simply cannot see the joins. Actors appear to flow between them. Even the utterly believable front of 10 Downing Street, with its railings and twin boot-scrapers, was a standing set in the back lot (along with the exterior of the Ritz and of Buckingham Palace). It was redesigned three times as it changed over time. All it lacks is a cat.

Pinch yourself and accept that no filming whatsoever was done inside the Palace. Other grand houses (some arguably grander than the palace that Jackie Kennedy notoriously found rather tired) stood in, Wilton House in Wiltshire and Lancaster House in London among them. The rest was designed, prefabricated, and put up and down as required, always at speed. Even sentry boxes, and the Palace’s familiar glazed porte-cochère – all prefab. And Queen Elizabeth II’s stunningly realistic coronation in Westminster Cathedral was Ely Cathedral, Pinewood Studios and a reproduction throne.

On the crucial role that things play, Harvey explains that, although so much of royal life is shut off from us, royal desks often appear on television or in photos. From these, she gleaned many of the personal touches that we all gather around us, from pens to ornaments. Desk telephones also kept pace with change, from early Bakelite to angular ’70s models and beyond. Harvey stresses the importance of getting tech right, along with the endless cavalcade of lamps. As for the chintz-with-a-twist style that characterises Princess Diana’s ’80s apartment, she says, “I think we’ve been partly responsible for the frilly cushion comeback.”

Profuse and continual research is the key, with attention to detail setting The Crown apart from any series ever made. It’s the thing everyone mentions, too, from carpenters to continuity supervisors – the huge, often unsung team that ensures the magic happens.

Head of Research Annie Sulzberger has worked on The Crown since before its 2013 pitch. From a small team researching everything, the number soon grew. Five people worked full-time on each episode – using a library that swelled to 800 books, along with databases – and were supported by newspaper archivists, specialists, and an etiquette adviser. Her department produced timelines and character development, and made a visual “bible” of, say, cars driven by Princess Anne. In order to gain permission to use a newspaper’s masthead to reproduce a front page for just one shot, the entire page might have to be rewritten, then mocked up by the art department (which also created letters, diaries and speeches – each one looking genuine on screen).

“On Series 1, I had to bone up on all things horsey, which screwed up my YouTube algorithm,” Sulzberger jokes. “I’ve been a researcher since 2006, but I’ve never known a production to care this much, which really comes down to Peter [Morgan]. He was always keen to expand research.

“The Crown never followed one historian’s vision; it followed as many as we could find.” Which in turn uncovered fresh aspects of story or plot. “When Jackie Kennedy said the Palace was tired, and the Queen rather frumpy, we found that in Cecil Beaton’s diaries – which were extraordinary.

“It’s the depth of the series that makes it popular. Texture, care, production values. People love world-building. I don’t think it’s escapism – this really feels layered. It’s complex. It feels worth your hour.”

For many, it was the glorious costumes that made The Crown – with reason, for they are wonderfully designed, beautifully made, and each tailored to their occupant. The dramatic, sexy, chic gowns worn by Lia Williams’ Duchess of Windsor are tiny (the real duchess was whip-thin and petite, too). It would be a joy to own any of the many – so many – boned, beaded or draped ’50s-skirted dresses, wide and narrow, worn by Claire Foy’s Queen and Vanessa Kirby’s Margaret, while Helena Bonham Carter’s dazzling and often gloriously rebellious outfits for the later Margaret are one long regal scream. Associate Costume Designer Sidonie Roberts created some of the silks when she had unexpected time during lockdown, making those items even more unique.

While ’70s clothing might not be to everyone’s taste, Olivia Colman’s Trooping the Colour uniform for the Queen is painstakingly observed, as were an array of interesting garments – especially hats. Colman’s silk investiture ensemble is about as far as one could imagine, stylistically, from the lime-green investiture outfit and faux-feathered cartwheel hat worn by Marion Bailey’s Queen Mother, but both are very faithful.

Men in The Crown enjoy great clothes as well, such as Josh O’Connor’s engagement suit (as Prince of Wales), along with country clothes and tailored uniforms. Wedding and coronation garments are obvious highlights, but, because of the quality of design, fabric, and tailoring, even daywear items feel like part of the fabric of history.

Princess Diana’s clothes are somehow more emotionally attached to her story than those of any other character. Her well-known jumpers (recreated) are unexpectedly poignant; her ‘Wayne Sleep’ ballet dress speaks volumes, as does the black, so-called ‘Revenge dress’. In between, she wore many other very pretty day dresses. Perhaps, of all of them, her faun outfit, when she first met Prince Charles and dodged and hid behind plants, gives one pause. So delicate, so other-worldly.

It’s things like this – memorable, striking, and imbued with layers of recollected meaning – that are likely to turn this last hurrah of the props and costumes of The Crown into a very loud roar.

Philippa Stockley’s novels include Black Lily and A Factory of Cunning.

Proceeds from the live auction will go towards setting up Left Bank Pictures’ The Crown Scholarship Programme – for the National Film and TV School. All six seasons of The Crown are available to view on Netflix from 14 December.