Series Producer Marion Milne talks about how the series was made including the challenges faced in portraying the Queen as a real person, the research that went into the programme, and working with some of Britain's leading actresses.
'Embarking on The Queen series was a daunting prospect. Famously, our sovereign never gives anything away about her private life. In more than half a century there have been no interviews, no embarrassing revelations, nothing that really gets below the surface.
'Our challenge was to find a way of portraying her as a real person - likeable, occasionally difficult, and sometimes even vulnerable. Not a remote figure, but a real person. To make a revealing drama documentary series, that told the truth, was fair and accurate, but which also found surprising new insights, and made us look at The Queen in a different light.'
An intimate biography
'The idea of the series was to look at the social and political changes in Britain since the war through the eyes of the one person who was at the very heart of these events throughout - the Queen herself.
'In doing so, the series would be a surprisingly intimate and personal biography of the Queen across the whole length of her reign.
'Although this is in no sense an authorised series, we kept the palace informed about what we were up to at all times. We sent out over a hundred letters to friends of the Queen, family and key staff.
'Many were happy to see us off the record, and these conversations informed much of the dramatised sequences in the series. Others were prepared to be interviewed on camera when it was clear that although we were keen to break new ground in the series, we would only do so from as factual and informed a position as possible.'
Research and events
'We spoke to the main biographers and royal experts, to keep them in the picture and find out from them the sources that had been overlooked and the details that had been forgotten. The Queen is arguably the most famous person in the world and most photographed but we knew that it was only through the most exhaustive research that we could really get to the truth.
'And we also needed to set our portrait of The Queen against a backdrop of a Britain that has changed so much throughout her reign that it is unrecognisable from fifty years ago. As Jonathan Dimbleby, one of our on-screen interviewees, puts it: "The Queen has ridden the social tiger of the most dramatic changes that it’s almost possible to imagine in peace time."
'Once we had worked out which stories we were planning to cover across the reign - loosely one major turning point per episode and per decade – we then had to go about uncovering the truths, facts and revelations.
'How much did The Queen oppose her sister Margaret's doomed romance with Peter Townsend? Was the monarchy under serious threat from republican factions in the 70s? Why did she and Margaret Thatcher not see eye-to-eye and how did the tensions between them very publicly boil over? What was it like to endure the annus horribilis of 1992 and the problems with Diana? And why, reluctantly, did the Queen change her mind about Camilla?'
Scripting and casting
'Once we had got the bulk of the documentary research and talking head interviews under our belt, we scripted our dramatic scenes and set up the drama filming.
The request from Channel 4 was for fully realised drama – with detailed scenes showing what had gone behind palace doors, based as closely as possible on what our research had uncovered.
'Cutting between archive and drama we were keen to show the private moments behind well-known public scenes, such as the Queen's distress at the Windsor Castle fire in November 1992, and Charles and Camilla's first public outing at The Ritz in January 1999.
'Then the search was on to find actresses to play our Queens – a different actress for each episode. We needed well-known names that would play well against each other - believable, but very different Queens, to take us through the decades.
'Our first signing was Samantha Bond for Episode 2, and after that the casting fell into place: Emilia Fox (Episode 1), Samantha Bond (Episode 2), Susan Jameson (Episode 3), Barbara Flynn (Episode 4) and Diana Quick (Episode 5).'
On location
'The location scouting took us all over Southern England. In the end we chose Stourhead House (setting for Barry Lyndon), Longleat, Neston Park and Grittleton House in Wiltshire, Knebworth in Hertfordshire and Orchardleigh in Somerset.
'We had to battle with this winter's heavy snowfall during some of the filming. Some of our more remote locations were snowed in, and our stoic crew had to overnight in local B&Bs to get through the shooting schedules on time. But we even managed to turn the weather to our advantage by matching an impromptu snowy drama scene of Diana and Fergie throwing snowballs at each other with specially shot exteriors of Kensington Palace in the snow.
'We worked not only with some of Britain's leading actresses, but with horses, corgis, period cars and child actors. Our production design was helped by beautiful locations and – after taking the official guided tours of Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace; we brought in an army of lamps, sofas, rugs, photographs and mirror to capture the authentic Windsor style.'
The finishing touches
'Our hair and makeup department had to create new wigs for each actress to reflect the Queens' changing hair styles over the years, and our costume designer worked from photo and film archive to develop a different 'look' for the Queen across the years – from the chic narrow waists worn by the new Queen in the 50s through riding clothes, wellingtons, head scarves, cocktail dresses and sensible suits.
'Replica copies of the outfits worn by the Queen to Camilla's wedding, and Camilla's famous wedding dress, were commissioned and specially made for the final episode in the series.
'The editing process was a lengthy one: incorporating drama, interviews, specially shot vistas and half a century of archive footage to show the changing face of Britain over the decades.
'We used specially commissioned music and songs from each era – spanning jazz through Pink Floyd and Oasis to The Verve and Radiohead.
'Now, over a year after we went into production, we are delivering what we hope will be a landmark series for Channel 4 this autumn. Certainly one that opens doors into a private royal world from as authentic a perspective as possible.'
