Heavy Lies The Crown: The balancing act between truth and entertainment when it comes to fictionalised real-life dramas

Elizabeth Debicki as Princess Diana in The Crown Season 5.

Maureen Coleman

Having portrayed both Queen Elizabeth I and Queen Victoria on the big screen, Dame Judi Dench is no stranger to royal dramatisations.

While her role in Mrs Brown — which charted the unlikely friendship between Queen Victoria and a Scottish servant, John Brown — was a fictionalised version of a real-life story, Shakespeare in Love played fast and loose with the truth.