The Crown has been a worldwide phenomenon and this week marks the release of the final part of the final series. The closing handful of episodes takes on some of the most important royal moments of the early 21^st century to date including the death of Princess Margaret, the marriage of King Charles and Queen Camilla, and Prince William and Princess Kate’s first meeting at St Andrew’s University.

Across the six series, there have been a series of outstanding performances from actors who were established to those who have become established because of the series.

The Crown took Doctor Who star Matt Smith and First Man’s Claire Foy and transformed them into a Prince and Queen who ascended to the throne much earlier than they thought they would.

Later we were introduced to Charles Dance’s Lord Mountbatten, Johnny Lee Miller’s John Major, and Erin Doherty’s Princess Anne, each bouncing off the screen. During the lockdown of late 2020, Emma Corrin’s performance as a young Princess Diana put them firmly in the spotlight.

However, it wasn’t Corrin’s portrayal of Diana that stood out, it was her co-star Josh O’Connor’s King Charles that stood out only slightly more by a whisker for me, this is why.

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I have never been that interested in the Royal Family. I’m not a republican, but neither am I a royalist, but The Crown captivated me because it was fascinating to see how people who are so far away from everyday existence would be captured.

King Charles is the furthest from that existence and whose existence is uniquely interesting in that from the moment of his conception his career was decided. When series three and four were announced, I was interested to see how they would capture a king in waiting and the pressures and restrictions that that entails.

Josh O’Connor’s best performance as the then Prince of Wales in episode six of series three stood out because it seemed to capture the internal battle at the heart of being heir to the throne, the heart vs duty dynamic that dominates O’Connor’s performance.

The episode sees King Charles removed from his happy hunting ground at Cambridge University where he is thriving in amateur dramatics and sent to Wales to learn Welsh before his investiture as Prince of Wales. He learns the language and gives a speech at the end, but O’Connor paints a picture of a prince he has been forced by the vicissitudes of duty to go there.

While this seems inevitable that a young man would be reluctant to go from something he loves to something he initially doesn’t, it is interesting to see King Charles’ artistic non-royal side touched on. It is because of this that you briefly feel sorry for one of the richest and most privileged men in the country.

Fast-forward to series four and you feel exactly the opposite as you see O’Connor’s King Charles disrespect and behave strangely towards Corrin’s Princess Diana. Once again there is a sense of heart vs duty pulling the young Charles in a direction he doesn’t want to go, but this time there is collateral as O’Connor releases emotional shrapnel.

The same skills O’Connor uses to make you feel sorry for Charles in series three are used again to make the heir to the throne a supremely unlikeable character, one whose anger at not being able to marry Camilla throws Diana into the firing line. It is here that Emma Corrin perfectly plays Diana who you also feel sorry for, a young person whose feelings are beholden to the demands of the Firm as the ultimately tragic love story begins.

Their performances differ and while O’Connor for me has stood out, so has Corrin who has now gone on to become one of Britain’s most successful actors. The reason I have chosen O’Connor is very simple, I don’t feel we know much about King Charles.

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The reason for this is that he is the top of the tree, the one whose thoughts are protected by level after level of filters, blinds, and screens, whose destiny was decided long ago. As a result, his is a fascinating character one which goes beyond the privilege, the billions, and the cheese and wine-powered Aston.

While in recent years we have seen more of his self through his environmental campaigning and his quips to Prime Ministers, we don’t think much about the young man he was and some of the pressures of knowing he could not have become a journalist or something else in life.

This doesn’t mean I feel entirely sorry for him because of The Crown, some of his alleged behaviour towards Diana (wearing cufflinks bearing CC on their honeymoon) were not necessarily wise decisions, but I do feel sorry that he lacked the choice to choose his long-term destiny as a younger man.

O’Connor’s success with Charles is to show us both the reluctant boy torn between heart and duty and the angry man torn between one heart and another.

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