A right royal to-do

As The Crown moves into the 1990s; the yet-to-screen season five has already drawn flak from the rich and famous.

- RUSSELL BAILLIE

THE CROWN, SEASON FIVE, Netflix, Wednesday, November 9 The Queen looks a little shorter. Prince Charles looks a little wider. Princess Diana a little taller and thinner. The Duke of Edinburgh a little … friendlier?

Such is the changing of the guard for The Crown for its fifth and penultimate season, one that is causing much consternation among the monarchy’s more devoted subjects in the British press. And one that ends before the death of Diana in August 1997.

As has been the Netfl ix show’s regimen every two seasons, a new cast has been fitted into the tweed and tiaras as events head into the 1990s.

We know it’s the 1990s because the Verve’s era classic Bitter Sweet Symphony is on the trailer, which has the Queen delivering her 1992 “annus horribilis” speech amid shots of her in the charred remains of Windsor Castle.

Inheriting the hats, gloves and pearls from Olivia Colman is Imelda Staunton, possibly best known for her role as the angry grand inquisitor Dolores Umbridge in the Harry Potter movies.