The Crown: Why Prince Harry’s memoir Spare wasn’t used in season 6

Is Harry's memoir fact or fiction? That's what The Crown asked when plotting season six. Photo / Getty Images

The Crown would have made greater use of Prince Harry’s memoir Spare as a source if it had been published earlier, the show’s head of research has said.

Annie Sulzberger, who ran a team of five researchers towards the end of the award-winning drama about the Royal family, suggested that Harry’s tell-all autobiography Spare was out too late to make much of an impact.

“There were nice details in there that I think were useful and, had we got it a year earlier, maybe it would have made more of a difference,” the 40-year-old told The Telegraph.

She added, however, that despite the revelations in the Duke of Sussex’s best-seller, she and the team were “very careful” about how far they are willing to take a personal memoir as fact.

“It was very interesting to read and to be able to get his insider understanding of his experiences within the family at a time, but it didn’t affect us enormously in the end,” she said.

Prince Harry’s memoir was released in early January this year along with his promotional interviews, just as The Crown was wrapping up filming for the sixth and final season of the series.

Luther Ford as Prince Harry, Ed McVey as Prince William in season 6 of The Crown. Photo / Justin Downing, Netflix

Ms Sulzberger said that they had already written and shot the majority of season six at that point, which was released in two parts in November and December, covering Princess Diana’s death, Harry and William’s relationship with their father while coming to terms with the tragedy, William’s time at Eton and his early courtship with Kate.

She said: “We were done with quite a bit of it so we didn’t go back and reshoot because Harry’s book came out,” adding that nonetheless it was “interesting” for her team to read it.

It did inform some aspects of the filming, however, such as Harry’s details about Club H in their father’s Highgrove home.

“It came out in time for some of the episodes where we show the Highgrove party and H Club, we were able to get a little bit of a sense of like ‘oh, it’s in a basement and there’s a light’ and those sorts of things,” the head researcher explained.

Prince Harry on the Front page of The Sun Supplied to NZH 13th Jan 2005

Nazi uniform

She added that the controversial scene in the costume shop, where Harry infamously chose a Nazi costume for a party, was “tricky territory”.

In this show, the Princess of Wales is shown voicing concern over his choice of costume, despite a contrary version of events revealed in Harry’s memoir.

Speaking about this scene, Ms Sulzberger said: “To go through that kind of emotional upheaval that he has gone through is going to affect everything.

“That is not to say that his version of what happened in that costume shop didn’t happen, but it is just to say that it’s tricky territory.”

Her comments come ahead of a major auction of hundreds of props and costumes from the hit series in February, which will take place after an exhibition at Bonhams on New Bond Street in the New Year.

The free exhibition will be opening on January 11, less than a month after the sixth and final series of The Crown was released, ending with the 2005 wedding of Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles.

The Crown Season 6 photo Harry, William, and Charles. Photo / Keith Bernstein, Netflix

Coveted items

Speaking about the chance for Crown fans to buy up some coveted items – from a replica of Buckingham Palace’s grandiose wrought iron gates to two porcelain corgi ornaments – Ms Sulzberger said: “There’s something really special to me about being able to take home something from a show that maybe entertained or guided you.”

She added: “I think what people have created with this show, and I think what the show does well, is that in humanising these members of a very public family, there’s an intimacy between the audience and the characters.

“I would love that when people take home these objects, whoever it is, to feel that intimacy at home and that there’s a kind of continuation there.”

Her favourite item out of the 450-strong collection going on display is the red box, which in reality has the function of keeping sealed documents sent through the Private Secretary’s Office to the monarch.

“For me, the red box means everything. It’s the first physical object we focused in on as wholly representative of the burden of responsibility [of the monarch],” Ms Sulzberger said.

Prince William (Ed McVey) and Prince Harry (Luther Ford) with their father, Prince Charles (Dominic West), in Season 6 of The Crown. Photo / Netflix

Live auction

“The second you see that on her desk, you know she’s separate from her family now…it doesn’t matter what the issue is, she has to go and be the queen.”

A live auction will take place on February 7, while an online auction of around 300 lots will run from January 11 until February 8. Proceeds will go towards the establishment of Left Bank Pictures – The Crown Scholarship programme at the National Film and Television School.

Bonhams said the display would offer a unique opportunity to experience behind-the-scenes at The Crown and to marvel at the “exceptional craftsmanship and creativity” of the long-running drama.

Speaking about the legacy that the hit show has produced – and the impact it has had on the public’s perception of the Royal family – Ms Sulzberger said that she thinks the writers were “compassionate”, explaining: “We don’t make decisions lightly.”

She added: “I think it helps create a balance of understanding between the public and these public figures, who don’t often have a voice…I think there’s no bad thing in humanising public figures.”