The first part of the sixth and final season of the popular Netflix series The Crown is out now.

Season 6: part one of The Crown was released on Netflix on Thursday (November 16) with the second instalment to be available in December.

Imelda Staunton (Queen Elizabeth II), Elizabeth Debicki (Princess Diana) and Dominic West (Prince Charles) are among the cast members returning for the final season of The Crown as the show looks to conclude the story of the Royals which it began back in 2016.

Executive producer Suzanne Mackie described the first half of Season 6 as “very powerful,” and a point in the show’s storytelling the creators couldn’t have imagined reaching when they first began working on it. 

Speaking to Netlfix, she said: “I remember these conversations 10 years ago, when we first sat around the table talking about The Crown, and the ambition for telling the story over six seasons, 60 episodes.

“And that one day –– which felt unimaginable then, 10 years earlier –– that we would one day even get to this point because you never know what the landscape would be.

"Whether the appetite for this story would continue. Whether we would want to continue, like we hoped and assumed we would, but you never know.”

What's The Crown season 6 - part 1 about?

Season 5 of The Crown ended on what Elizabeth Debicki described as “a hopeful beat” for her character, Princess Diana, but with the royals’ relevancy left hanging in the balance.

Netflix says season 6 picks up with Diana and Prince Charles (Dominic West) spending their first summer apart as a divorced couple, each enjoying very different holidays with their sons Prince William (Rufus Kampa) and Prince Harry (Fflyn Edwards). 

Ms Mackie added: “We’re very much in the beginning of the Princess Diana and Dodi Fayed story.

“From the second she steps onto that boat and [you begin to see] some of those iconic images of her on the yacht, it does take you immediately to the whirlwind that was the press speculation around that romance. 

The Crown season 6 cast

The cast for the Crown season 6 will include:

  • Imelda Staunton (also seen in the Harry Potter franchise, Downtown Abbey, Nanny McPhee) - Queen Elizabeth II

  • Jonathan Pryce (James Bond: Tomorrow Never Dies, Game of Thrones) as Prince Philip

  • Lesley Manville (Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Emmerdale Farm) - Princess Margaret

  • Dominic West (Les Misérables, 300, Chicago, The Wire) - Prince Charles

  • Elizabeth Debicki (The Great Gatsby, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Guardians of the Galaxy movies) - Princess Diana

  • Rufus Kampa (on-screen debut) - Prince William

  • Fflyn Edwards (Shadow and Bone, 1899, The Continental: From the World of John Wick) - Prince Harry

  • Olivia Williams (The Postman, Rushmore, The Sixth Sense) - Camilla Parker Bowles

  • Claudia Harrison (The IT Crowd, Midsomer Murders, Holby City) - Princess Anne

  • Khalid Abdalla (The Kite Runner, Moon Knight, Assassin’s Creed, Green Zone)  - Dodi Fayed

  • Salim Daw (Fauda, Oslo) - Mohamed Al-Fayed

  • Bertie Carvel (Doctor Foster, Dalgliesh and productions of Matilda the Musical) - Tony Blair

When is The Crown season 6 on Netflix?

Season 6 of The Crown will be released in two parts. 

Part one is available to stream now on Netflix having been released on Thursday (November 16).

While Part two will be released in the UK on December 14, 2023.

Filming locations used for The Crown season 6

Netflix has revealed some of the locations used for filming of The Crown season 6. 

Parts of Princess Diana's final moments in Paris were captured in the French capital. 

However, the creators of the show had to get creative with some Paris destinations including the Ritz Hotel where Diana had been staying with Dodi before their final car journey. 

Netflix explained they were unable to use the actual hotel in Paris so had to create a set resembling it.

Other France scenes were shot in Spain including in sites in Barcelona and Mallorca.

The photo of a tanned Diana sitting on the end of a diving board, in a blue bathing suit and dangling her feet over the Mediterranean Sea is among the most well-known images of the princess.

Wandsworth Times: Elizabeth Debicki returns as Princess Diana in season 6 of The Crown.Elizabeth Debicki returns as Princess Diana in season 6 of The Crown. (Image: DANIEL ESCALE/NETFLIX)

This was recreated on the Mediterranean, but on a diving board off the yacht they had been using to film Diana and Dodi scenes from their time on his yacht.

Locations in the UK used for filming of The Crown season 6, according to House Beautiful, included:

  • Lancaster House, London

  • Wilton House, Wilton

  • Burghley House, Peterborough

  • Somerleyton Hall, Somerleyton

  • Wellington College, Crowthorne

  • Ardverikie Estate, Kinloch Laggan, Scotland

  • Dartmouth House, London

  • Canary Wharf, London

  • University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Scotland

  • Winchester Cathedral, Winchester

  • York Minster, York

The Crown Season 6 - Part 1 is available to stream now on Netflix.