EXCLUSIVE: The Crown‘s finale dropped on Thursday and featured a surprise coming together of the three incarnations of Queen Elizabeth II.
Imelda Staunton, Olivia Colman, and Claire Foy gathered for a stirring penultimate scene in which they united under the arches of St George’s Chapel, where the real Queen is buried.
Dickie Arbiter, the Queen’s former press secretary, has been a hawkish viewer of the Netflix series and can now reflect on the performances of the three women who played his boss.
He was withering about Colman and Staunton’s portrayals of Queen Elizabeth over the past four seasons of The Crown — the period in which he worked closely with Her Majesty.
Arbiter said he did not recognize the “drawn” woman played by Colman, while he argued that Staunton’s Queen was gloomy in a way that did the Queen a disservice.
He told Deadline: “I don’t remember her being glum and boring. Glum if there was a death in the family or one of the dogs had to be put down, but she was playing glum and boring right the way through.”
Arbiter credited Staunton with capturing the Queen well in one scene: when she delivered an address to the nation after Princess Diana’s death. Arbiter played a key role in orchestrating the speech in real life.
The royal commentator’s favorite portrayal came from Foy, who captured a young Elizabeth in the first two seasons of The Crown. Arbiter said she was “brilliant.”
In an interview last month, he accused The Crown creator Peter Morgan of “dramatic license gone bonkers” in his portrayal of the events surrounding Princess Diana‘s death.
Arbiter was particularly critical of scenes in which Prince Charles (Dominic West) breaks the news of Diana’s death to her sons, Princes William and Harry. Diana is played by Elizabeth Debicki in the final season.
“The sequence of Charles telling his sons of their mother’s death was so insensitive, it was so unnecessary,” he said. “The death of their mother is still raw with both of them.”