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Five leading British actresses play the Queen at pivotal times in her reign in this ground-breaking series, mixing dramatised scenes behind palace doors with news archive and testimony from royal insiders. 


Barbara Flynn takes on the role of the Queen as her Annus Horribilis of 1992 turns the spotlight on her role as Head of the Royal Family and reveals how she coped with a catalogue of scandals involving her family, which until then had been perceived as a model for the nation.

It was - the Queen admitted after the fire in Windsor Castle - the most difficult year for her and her family since she came to the throne. A year in which, every month, the newspapers seized upon yet another disaster that had beset the House of Windsor. It signalled a pivotal moment when the age of deference seemed finally to have disappeared. In the tabloid press it was now open season on the royals.

This episode examines how the Queen dealt with this most difficult year, and how by the end even she had to admit that enough was enough.

It focuses in particular on what came to be seen by many within the palace as "the enemy within," the Queen"s daughter in law, Princess Diana (played by Emily Hamilton). As a result of her involvement with Andrew Morton"s book, Diana shattered the public image of the royal family.

Royal insiders reveal how the palace plotted to ditch Diana, in the same way they had ditched Sarah Ferguson, and how, whether she liked it or not, the Queen had to become embroiled in the "War of the Wales".