The Crown: The Official Podcast

After thirty years together, Charles decides the time has come to propose to Camilla but can’t do so without his mother’s permission. The Queen seeks the approval of the church, state, and Charles’s sons before giving her sign off to the marriage but having been unsettled by discussions surrounding her own funeral planning, the Queen starts to consider her reign and ultimately her legacy.     Edit...

In the aftermath of Princess Margaret’s death, the Queen approaches her Golden Jubilee with more trepidation than ever before. With her mother’s health in decline, she finds herself vulnerable to the attacks of Mohamed Al Fayed who pursues a high-profile campaign to prove responsibility for Diana’s death lies with the Royal Family. Meanwhile, between his blossoming romance with Kate and the re-ope...

Whilst holidaying in Mustique, Princess Margaret suffers a stroke and is suddenly forced to reassess her lifestyle. Margaret is keen to recover in anticipation of her seventieth birthday, but the Queen remains concerned that her party-loving sister will not be able to kick the habits of a lifetime in order to heal. As Margaret’s health continues to decline, she finds herself slipping back into her...

As Prince William takes up his place at St Andrews University to study art history, after a gap year in Africa and South and Central America, he struggles to balance the traditional undergraduate rites of passage with the constraints of his position and constant presence of personal protection officers. His perseverance is tested when he develops a crush on one of the most desired students on camp...

Two years into his premiership, Tony Blair continues to ride a wave of unprecedented popularity. This unnerves the Queen who worries that the Royal Family’s own popularity does not match up. When she commissions a wide-ranging poll, the results are sobering, leading the Queen to reflect on what she - and the Palace - could be doing differently. After Blair’s reputation is further cemented by his s...

Still coming to terms with his mother’s death, Prince William resumes school at Eton just three days after her funeral. He wants things to return to normal as quickly as possible - but rapidly discovers his life has changed in more ways than one. Among the letters of sympathy arriving by the sackload from members of the public are adoring letters from teenage girls - evidence of his growing status...

After the news breaks of Diana and Dodi’s fatal car accident, Charles and Fayed fly separately to Paris to supervise arrangements. The tragedy generates a vast outpouring of public grief, which catches the Queen off-guard. While she remains at Balmoral, popular anger builds about her absence from London and the perceived callousness of the Royal Family. Charles, recognising the precariousness of t...

Diana holidays on the Fayed yacht with Dodi once more, but with Dodi drained by a bitter lawsuit lodged by his former fiancée, the novelty is starting to wear off for Diana whose thoughts turn towards reuniting with William and Harry upon her return to London. A fateful diversion to Paris sees matters come to a head - against the backdrop of an intensified and aggressive media pursuit.  Edith Bowm...

Diana’s blossoming romance with Dodi sees them return to the south of France, getting to know each other on an idyllic cruise away from prying eyes. Or so they think. Soon, an intimate image of the couple becomes a global tabloid sensation, threatening to derail Diana’s planned trip to Bosnia as part of her campaign against landmines. In Balmoral, meanwhile, Prince Charles’s private secretary sens...

As Princess Diana and the boys set off for St Tropez for a holiday courtesy of Mohamed Al Fayed, Prince Charles plans a glittering fiftieth birthday party at Highgrove that he hopes the Queen will attend. Fayed, too, is in strategizing mode. Unbeknownst to Diana, he hopes to engineer a romance between the Princess and his son, Dodi. But with a small complication: Dodi himself is already engaged to...

Before Season 6 of The Crown drops on Netflix November 16th, join Edith Bowman to catch up on story so far. This special pre-season episode of The Crown: The Official Podcast guides you through the key moments in the journey of Queen Elizabeth and her family, from Season 1 to Season 5, as we await the final ever season of The Crown. And of course, join Edith on The Crown: The Official Podcast from...

In the run up to the general election of 1997, New Labour - under the leadership of Tony Blair - are way ahead in the polls. But Blair's modernising ideas include getting rid of the Royal Yacht, Britannia - a vessel very close to the Queen's heart. When Blair wins with a landslide, it becomes clear Britannia is to be decommissioned which devastates the Queen but Charles sees an opportunity to alig...

As a consequence of the Panorama interview, the Queen writes to both Prince Charles and Princess Diana requesting that they divorce as swiftly as possible. The ensuing divorce process becomes quite heated and so the Queen asks the Prime Minister, John Major, to act as an intermediary between the two warring parties. But when Prince Charles employs a young press advisor (Mark Bolland) to help Camil...

An internecine conflict at the heart of the BBC between its Chairman and Director General provides the modernising DG, John Birt, with the ammunition he needs to sign off on Bashir's Panorama interview with Princess Diana. With Prince William settling in at Eton, he and the Queen start to have regular 'teas' together and the Queen realises William is concerned about his mother. But neither of them...

Newly separated and with Prince William now gone to Eton, Diana feels lonely and stuck in no man's land between marriage and divorce. Increasingly paranoid that Prince Charles's team is briefing against her, she is susceptible to the manoeuvres of BBC journalist, Martin Bashir, who wants to land an interview with the Princess for the Panorama programme. Having recently met and fallen for a Pakista...

After the fall of communism and the collapse of the USSR, the new President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, comes to Britain on an official visit. During his lunch at Buckingham Palace, the Queen brings up the uncomfortable topic of the slaughter of the Russian royal family in 1918 and the fact the location of their remains is still a great mystery. Yeltsin promises to locate their remains so the Queen'...

Newly separated, Prince Charles has a new lease of life and really starts to prove himself worthy of the title King-in-waiting. However, when a recording of an intimate phone call between him and Camilla is leaked to the press, his reputation lies in tatters. But far from destroying him, it further motivates him to distance himself from the traditionalists of his mother's court and plough his own...

In a speech celebrating her 40th year on the throne at the end of 1992, the Queen recounts that her year has been an 'Annus Horribilis', an accurate description for the year in which she saw three of her four children separate or divorce and Windsor Castle suffer a devastating fire. But her more private pain is the accusation by her sister that she is responsible for Margaret’s lifetime of unhappi...

From his early childhood in Alexandria, through the building of his multi-million pound global empire, Mohamed Al Fayed had an unwavering fascination with the British Royal Family culminating in his purchase of the former home of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in Paris. After extending an invitation to the Queen to visit the refurbished 'Villa Windsor', Mohamed is disappointed when the Lord Chamb...

After the death of her young daughter to cancer, Penny Knatchbull is encouraged by the Duke of Edinburgh to take up carriage driving as a way of coping with her grief. At the same time, Princess Diana is dealing with her own kind of grief - being trapped in a loveless marriage - and so when approached via an intermediary to cooperate with journalist, Andrew Morton, on a book exposing the truth abo...

As the Prince and Princess of Wales depart on their 'second honeymoon' in an effort by Charles's team to convince the public that their marriage is back on track, the Queen and Prince Philip set sail from Portsmouth on the annual Western Isles tour aboard Britannia. But when the Sunday Times publishes a poll saying the public would favour the Queen to abdicate in favour of Prince Charles, John Maj...

The Crown returns for season 5 on November 9th and The Crown: The Official Podcast is back to follow the show episode by episode, diving deep into the stories and speaking with many of the talented people involved. Host Edith Bowman takes you behind the scenes in conversation with the likes of Show Creator Peter Morgan and new cast members Imelda Staunton, Elizabeth Debicki, Dominic West and Jonat...

Bonus Episode : Season 4 Cast and Creatives in Conversation. As we patiently await the next season of Netflix’s ‘The Crown’, host of The Crown: The Official Podcast Edith Bowman caught up with the cast and creatives to reflect on Season 4. Join Edith in conversation with show creator Peter Morgan as well as season 4 cast members Olivia Colman, Tobias Menzies, Gillian Anderson, Josh O’Connor and Em...

Margaret Thatcher's position as Prime Minister hangs in the balance as members of her cabinet turn against her. Meanwhile, Princess Diana is set to take on her first official solo trip overseas to New York, despite Prince Charles’ doubts. Will Thatcher be able to secure her position? Will Diana's trip be a success?  Is war the only way forward? In this episode, Edith Bowman talks with Show Runner...

It’s 1988 and Prince Charles and Princess Diana’s marriage is at an all-time low. After Prince Charles narrowly escapes death in an avalanche whilst skiing, Diana becomes determined to reconcile their relationship. However, the near-death experience has the opposite effect on Charles, who vows to find a way to be free of the marriage and be with Camilla.  In this episode, Edith Bowman talks with S...