Peter Morgan

Morgan had originally planned for six series of the much-loved drama, but has decided that the fifth series “is the perfect time and place to stop”.

Morgan thanked Netflix and Sony for supporting his decision and described Staunton as an “astonishing talent” and a “fantastic successor”.

Staunton will be the final actor to play the Queen after predecessors Claire Foy and Olivia Colman, taking the series into the 21^st Century.

The Crown first aired in 2016 and with its big budget production spend, was hailed as a game-changing drama for Netflix.

Part royal soap, part British political lesson, The Crown is all first-rate drama. To mark the release of its second season on Netflix, a packed RTS pre-Christmas event at the House of Commons heard creator and writer Peter Morgan, executive producer Suzanne Mackie and director Philippa Lowthorpe discuss how they made the award-winning series.

Season 2 of The Crown, produced by UK indie Left Bank Pictures, begins with the Suez crisis in 1956 and ends with the Profumo affair in 1963.

When the history of TV in the early 21st Century is written, The Crown, Netflix’s ravishing period drama recounting the reign of Elizabeth II, is likely to be regarded as a watershed moment.

The reasoning might go something like this: The Crown was the first genuinely cinematic, long-form TV show that audiences could watch how and when they wanted to, and it gave crucial impetus to Netflix’s international ambitions. Critics loved it and awards juries kept voting for the drama.