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The Crown, season 6 episode 1, Persona Non Grata, review: the tragedy begins with cat-and-mouse games
Diana's holiday with Dodi leaves Charles furious that he and Camilla are losing the PR war – leading to some very silly dialogue
- Warning: this review contains spoilers
Gazing out of the window at Chequers, Cherie Blair spies a schoolboy Prince William arriving with his mother. “Sweet-looking – for an alien,” she says to Tony. It’s an odd little line, in the opening minutes of this sixth and final series, but it sums up The Crown’s attitude to the Royal family. All of these people, it’s saying, are from another planet.
Take the Prince of Wales throwing a 50th birthday party for Camilla Parker Bowles, and wanting his mother to be there. “Your attendance, not only as my mother, but symbolically as Queen, would be transformative for Camilla,” he tells her. The Queen says she’ll be spending the day visiting a Rolls-Royce factory in Derbyshire instead.
Before all that, though, the very first scene shows us a man taking his dog for a walk in Paris. Who is he? Merely a screenwriter’s device: as he leads the dog beside the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, a black Mercedes speeds past, pursued by motorcycles. We hear the sound of the crash, and he calls the emergency services. A reminder, as if you needed one, that this series will deal with Diana’s death.
From there we go back in time. The Queen has blocked Diana’s request for an official role as some sort of government ambassador, because she is no longer an HRH. “You’re either in or out,” she explains to Tony Blair (are you listening, Harry and Meghan?), because if we know anything about the Queen by now it’s that she’s a stickler for protocol and has all the human feeling of a fencepost.
Diana accepts an offer to holiday with the boys at Mohamed al-Fayed’s Mediterranean villa. Mohamed summons Dodi and orders him to woo the Princess, telling his son that he is “putting her on a plate”. There is no sexual chemistry between Dodi and Diana, but they end up bonding over daddy issues.
Khalid Abdalla wins our sympathy as Dodi, shoulders drooping under the weight of his father’s unreasonable expectations. Diana is savvier; when she teases the waiting press that soon she will have a “big surprise” it is a ruse to make them leave, because William will not go outside until they do. As Diana, Elizabeth Debicki has nailed Diana’s flirtatious charm, though she is far skinnier than the real thing.
Dominic West gives us both sides of Charles: the loving partner, who reads out a love letter from Persuasion at Camilla’s party (yes, he casts himself as Captain Wentworth); and the petulant loser, furious that pictures of Diana on the Fayed yacht are eclipsing the love of his life: “I want positive coverage of Mrs Parker Bowles to be glaringly, screamingly obvious!” he yells at his PR flunkeys. “I don’t want partial, qualified victory. This is war. Only total victory will do.”
This speech is silly and a reminder that The Crown has always thrown daft dialogue and clunky exposition into the mix. Now we have mysterious symbolism too, unless the lingering shot of a mouse is just a sign that the Queen needs some wire wool to plug the skirting boards.
This is an episode setting us up for the tragedy to come. Frozen out by the Firm, used by Mohamed al-Fayed and besieged by paparazzi – all the ingredients are here. Diana returns from the holiday to a Kensington Palace apartment filled with roses sent by Dodi. “Paris next week?” reads the accompanying note.