Blair is played by Bertie Carvel, who spoke exclusively with RadioTimes.com<\/a> about how the show tackled the Labour Prime Minister\u2019s<\/a> arc and how it represents him.<\/p>\n \u201cThis season is not, as I might have hoped, a biopic of Blair\u2019s time in office,\u201d Carvel explained. \u201cYou get snapshots. Episode 6 is very Blair focused. I think it\u2019s a really interesting microcosm of the Blair years, but it doesn\u2019t try to cover everything.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd much as I was standing ready to do my episode on the Good Friday Agreement and my episode on the Iraq War and my episode on whatever it might have been, Peter touches those things with quite a light brush, I think, and focuses on private conversations really.<\/p>\n \u201cI really enjoyed that I get to do quite a lot of public Blair stuff in episode 6, but then it\u2019s also always brought back to those audience room scenes which are highly private, confidential and entirely imagined by Peter, because constitutionally we\u2019re never meant to know what happens in that closed room, which is really the premise on which the whole series is hung.\u201d<\/p>\n Carvel continued: \u201cI suppose if I had to summarise it, Blair represents modernity. He\u2019s a moderniser, a radical, and to some extent the Queen represents tradition, continuity and so on. And there\u2019s a struggle in her own self in episode 6 \u2013 she herself is prepared to be a moderniser and she wants to take a leaf out of Blair\u2019s book.<\/p>\n \u201cShe commissions polls and studies and focus groups and has her own family balking at the very idea, because she\u2019s prepared to look at the institution of monarchy; unflatteringly, if necessary. And then the conversations with Blair, she takes the role of a kind of continuity candidate, and argues out whether or not the monarchy should change.<\/p>\n Read more:<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAnd whereas Blair is the arch moderniser and the radical, he\u2019s also one who, I think, has some sympathy with the institution of monarchy. He\u2019s not some sort of kind of bull in a china shop coming in trying to wreck the institution \u2013 he\u2019s trying to steer his monarch and give her good advice.<\/p>\n \u201cSo they\u2019re both playing both roles. And it\u2019s interesting, I guess Peter uses it to have a debate about what the monarchy should be, and hopefully the audience will make up their own minds.\u201d<\/p> Meanwhile, Imelda Staunton, who plays Queen Elizabeth, told RadioTimes.com<\/strong> that she \u201cloves\u201d the contrast between the Queen and Blair, adding that in their meetings on the show she \u201cused to always think of it as like she felt there was a teenager in the room, and not one that was particularly well behaved\u201d.<\/p>\n She continued: \u201cSo that was my little sort of trick in my head, about her attitude to him. And dramatically it was wonderful to see her having to adjust to the new person in the chair opposite, and the fact that he just wanted to come in and blow everything out of the water. And she had to just sort of go, \u2018just calm down, calm down\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd I like the way she would call things out if she didn\u2019t agree, whether it\u2019s about Iraq or whatever, that she didn\u2019t just sit and go, \u2018Oh, well, he\u2019s trying to make a lot of noise, I\u2019ll just have to sit back and listen to this\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cBut she also recognised that the world is changing and that it does have to move forward. Things must change, but not everything has to change at once. I think that\u2019s the stance that she took.\u201d<\/p> ![\"Bertie](\"https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2023\/12\/TheCrownPartTwoImages83-dc3fbbb.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C413\" "\\"TheCrown_PartTwo_Images_83\\"\/")
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