Alison Harvey (‘The Crown’ set decorator) admits the show became ‘a universal story weirdly’ [Exclusive Video Interview]

“Weirdly, it’s a vehicle for exploring what every family has,” admits Alison Harvey about the portrayal of the monarchy on “The Crown.” For our recent webchat she continues, “Because their lives are real and everything they did has frailty, they end up reflecting every family somehow. It becomes a universal story weirdly, despite them having received enormous privilege.” Watch our exclusive video interview above.

“The Crown” chronicled the reign of Queen Elizabeth II for the Netflix series created by Peter Morgan. He took the distinctive approach of resetting the cast every two seasons to showcase a different time of the longest serving monarch in British history’s life. For the final two seasons of the show, the Queen was played by Imelda Staunton. Harvey has worked on the series from the beginning and been set decorator since season 2.

She adds, “The Queen is a still point in the maelstrom of change,” so her sets stayed the same throughout the seasons. Every time we introduced a new actress, the environment could feel the same. But there was great fun to travel through the decades and how the environment subtlety changed. We have a whole prop store of telephones from 1948 to 2005.”

The sixth season of the show marked the end for the Emmy Award-winning drama series. In the series finale, titled “Sleep Dearie Sleep,” Prince Charles, played by Dominic West, finally gets to marry Camilla. Harvey also did the set decoration for Charles and Diana’s wedding in season 4. She says, “It was a big church in both cases but for Charles and Camilla it was trying to be more romantic. There was the orchestra, the choir, the trees and the flowers. It was a far more joyful environment because we know that was the happy point. There was an element of dissonance between the two sets.”

For the Queen’s final moments in the series, she sees visions of her younger incarnations, played by Claire Foy and Olivia Colman. Harvey adds, “The Queen having that moment of reflection with the other previous queen’s together was a poignant moment. We had to segment the cathedral halfway down to contain the space. We had to create our own world for that last sequence.”

In 2020, Harvey won a Production Design Emmy for her work on the show. The set decorator reflects, “We just provide a canvas, we are supporting background actors. Hopefully the environment disappears. I sort of feel you shouldn’t notice what we do. It should feel real and a correct space for those actors to be in.”

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