Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/1260764
C the arch in the facade, across the courtyard, all the way under the porte cochere to the front door and then inside the palace. A vacant backlot space I'd had my eye on for the building of either Clarence House or Kensington Palace would, it was wisely decided, remain available for whatever might turn up in the script. Anyone who has watched The Crown will know it is never 'more of the same' and so it proves every season, indeed every episode. For example, none of us had predicted the vacant lot would become a village in South Wales, part of season three's greatest challenge, as great a responsibility as any I have encountered—to show the world a national tragedy known by too few, in danger of remaining unknown to too many. In 1966 a coal slurry tip collapsed on the village of Aberfan in South Wales, killing twenty-eight adults and one hundred sixteen children from Pantglas Junior School. To tell such a story as accurately as possible meant above all else, honouring the dignity of its victims and the feelings of its survivors. Our drama's job was to remember, respect and inform. A devastated community would be part of our audience; the truth had to be recognized by them and learned by the rest. Forensic research was essential for the recreation of the village and its school. Thus, the schoolroom was replicated down to the books, the satchels, the drawings, the calendar on the wall. Detail was paramount. Recreating the tragedy in its original location was, of course, out of the uestion so, in order to portray the landscape accurately, a neighbouring village, Cwmaman, was chosen for the building of the fi rst incarnation of the school. Then, out of respect for the community's suff ering, it was built again in its destroyed state one hundred eighty miles away on the backlot at Elstree Studios—the C. THE CONVENT IN ATHENS. PHOTOCOMPOSITE BY MARTIN CHILDS. D. THE STATE DRAWING ROOM AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE, SET IN WILTON HOUSE, SALISBURY. SET PHOTO. E. LONDON STREETS. PEN AND WATERCOLOR STUDIES BY MARTIN CHILDS. D E