The Crown

The Crown sets the bar for British drama

Part royal soap, part British political lesson, The Crown is all first-rate drama. To mark the release of its second season on Netflix, a packed RTS pre-Christmas event at the House of Commons heard creator and writer Peter Morgan, executive producer Suzanne Mackie and director Philippa Lowthorpe discuss how they made the award-winning series.

Season 2 of The Crown, produced by UK indie Left Bank Pictures, begins with the Suez crisis in 1956 and ends with the Profumo affair in 1963.

Andy Harries' top tips for working in drama

Andy Harries in conversation with Alex Graham
Take your time: “If you are interested in television, you do not have to decide at this stage of the game what you want to do in TV – I have done almost everything … I don’t think it matters doing lots of different things until you finally settle … It took me some time to realise what I was really good at, which was producing.”
 

Olivia Colman set to play Queen Elizabeth II in recast of The Crown

Colman, best known for her roles in Broadchurch and The Night Manager, is the first star to be announced for the third series of the Netflix drama series.

The entire cast is set to be replaced for the next phase of the Queen's reign when the drama jumps ahead to 1960s Britain at the end of the second series.

Top scriptwriters offer advice on writing for TV drama

The panel (l-r) Sophie Petzal, Rachel Flowerday, John Jackson, Daisy Goodwin, David Hancock and Rachelle Constant (Credit: RTS/Paul Hampartsoumian)

“It’s important for me to have something to say. We’ve all written stuff that’s competent and empty,” said Sophie Petzal, whose television breakthrough came on CBBC dramas such as Wolfblood and Dangermouse. More recently she has written episodes for Sky Atlantic’s Riviera and BBC Two’s The Last Kingdom, and has original scripts in development with Company Pictures.