Imelda Staunton is succeeding Olivia Colman as Queen Elizabeth II, and will be presiding over what was a turbulent period for the family.

On her accession, Staunton told Tulum: "What has been nice, and I hope I don’t prove them wrong, is people saying, ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing her as the queen.' So, let’s just hope that works out for them, because I’ve done it. Nothing I can do about it now!"

Among the many challenges the monarchy face in series five is the fight to remain relevant in a rapidly changing world. It's set in a time when royal etiquette and convention are starting to be debated as increasingly outdated.

Dominic West (The Wire) and Elizabeth Debicki (The Night Manager) will play Prince Charles and Princess Diana in the series that will depict the moments leading up to - and the aftermath of - Diana's death in 1997.

In the promo, West addressed the charges of historical inaccuracy: “I think people understand, because the cast has changed every two seasons, that this is not an imitation,” he said. “This is an evoking of a character. That’s really where the show lives: in the imagined conversations of their private life, which is something that no one knows.

"I think that’s what it gets a lot of criticism for. How can you know what they talk about in their private lives? The obvious answer is we don’t, but we have an incredible writer, a dramatist, who imagines based on exhaustive research, and that’s really part of the fascination of the show.”

In the series four finale, Princess Diana was facing up to the fact that her fairy tale marriage was on the rocks. Debicki will take over the role from Emma Corrin as Diana begins to embrace the spotlight and carve a new lane of her own.

Debicki said that preparing for the part was made a lot easier by the media explosion in the 1990s: “Everything had started to be filmed, and also it was the birth of the 24-hour news cycle, so there’s just this incredible amount of content that we have access to," she said.

"Diana was the most photographed person in the world at that time. As an actor, you open the portal and this huge tsunami of information comes at you. I happily swam around in it.”

Olivia Williams will play Camilla Parker Bowles, a woman she said she admires and tried to generously portray given that she has often been misunderstood. “One of the great things about The Crown is: We get to see those sorts of imagined intimate moments, which maybe give us a better perspective on someone that we’ve judged,” she said.

“Charles and Camilla seem to have a very healthy sense of humour about what at times must be an unbearable predicament. And that is the thing that I most want to show.”

Rounding out the cast are Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret, and Jonathan Pryce as Prince Philip. Claudia Harrison plays the queen's only daughter Princess Anne, who she describes as a "proper feminist," and Jonny Lee Miller stars as Prime Minister John Major, who served from 1990 to 1997.

The Crown will return to Netflix for series five on 9 November 2022.