The Crown season three review - a lavish return full of royal pains
(The Guardian Culture News)

Olivia Colman struggles to rule over an increasingly strained brood and a fractured nation as Netflix´s regal epic resumes. One is not amused, but you´ll be hookedI know that, like me, you will have been worrying how the third season of The Crown would fare once Claire Foy´s Queen Elizabeth was replaced by Olivia Colman. Especially considering how the Telegraph columnist Charles Moore highlighted the apparently insuperable difficulty posed by Colman´s `distinctly leftwing face`.I am happy to report that Colman has somehow - I presume through some kind of high-offal diet and exercise regime involving chasing arrivistes off the land - managed to overcome her facial tendencies and channel Top Windsor most effectively. The rest of the new cast (Netflix has always been clear on its intention to replace actors every two series, which covers about two decades of real time) is equally fine. Tobias Menzies, whose own face distinctly suggests a man on the verge of either delighting you or slashing you with a concealed blade, is a perfect Duke of Edinburgh, a man I am pretty sure was hunting peasants in the concealed reaches of Balmoral with a bowie knife until age finally stopped him. Helena Bonham Carter is the ideal Princess Margaret, ever more consumed by inner misery and embracing of outward excess as her marriage to Lord Snowdon crumbles. If there is a touch of the Julie Walters/Mrs Overall creeping in towards the end of the 10-hour run, well, that is just the icing on the cake as far as I am concerned. Continue reading...