Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II in season 3 of The Crown

The Crown: first glimpse of Olivia Colman’s Queen as hit drama returns

Netflix have released a first look at the Oscar winner as she prepares to enter the palace – and set a date for the third season

Kate Abbott

Mon 12 Aug 2019 15.58 BST Last modified on Mon 12 Aug 2019 20.00 BST

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2019/aug/12/the-crown-first-glimpse-of-olivia-colman-queen-as-hit-netflix-drama-returns

The first look at the hugely anticipated third season of The Crown has arrived – showing Olivia Colman (plus her corgi sidekicks) poised to succeed Claire Foy as Queen Elizabeth II.

The third series of the royal smash hit will land on 17 November, Netflix has confirmed, with Oscar winner Colman taking the throne as the entire cast is given a reboot. Tobias Menzes will replace Matt Smith as Prince Philip, Helena Bonham Carter will become the new Princess Margaret, Game of Thrones star Charles Dance will play Lord Mountbatten and The Durrells’ Josh O’Connor will join the show as Prince Charles.

Created by Peter Morgan, The Crown has been a ratings smash since its release in 2016, and is one of the streaming giant’s most popular and most lavish shows. The first season cost a rumoured £100m to make.

The third and fourth series, in which Colman will star before a more modern queen takes a bow, will cover the early 60s to early 80s. It is likely to take in the birth of Prince Edward, Prince Charles’ university life and later coronation as the Prince of Wales, the death of Winston Churchill, Princess Margaret’s affair with British baronet and landscape gardener Roddy Llewellyn, and the Apollo 11 moon landing of 1969.

Netflix has also confirmed that Call the Midwife star Emerald Fennell, who took over from Phoebe Waller-Bridge to write Killing Eve 2, will be introduced as Camilla Shand (now known as Camilla Parker-Bowles) – Prince Charles’ future wife. “I absolutely love Camilla,” Fennell has said of landing the part, “and am very grateful that my teenage years have well prepared me for playing a chain-smoking serial snogger with a pudding bowl hair cut.”

Sex Education and X Files star Gillian Anderson has been signed up to play Margaret Thatcher in the fourth series, expected to land late in 2020, and newcomer Emma Corrin will play Princess Diana.