Turns out the wild heist which resulted in $280,000 worth of antiques being stolen from Netflix’s The Crown set also nearly sparked a murder investigation. Honestly, give me a whole new show recreating the lives of whoever caused this chaos.
Set decorator Alison Harvey dished some BTS tea about the heist to Variety, including some confusion after the thieves discarded a fake body from their booty (the treasure kind, no one shat out a doll).
“I think the most amusing bit was the police were treating [the theft] as a murder enquiry because one of the dummies, the prosthetics, was floating face down in the river next to where the theft had been, so they immediately thought ‘We’ve got a murder,’ but actually it was just a rubber body,” she recalled.
“That took a bit of time to work out.”
Production designer Martin Childs added: “Finding the antiques was not their priority because they [thought they] had a murder to investigate.”
Before @TheCrownNetflix Season 5 arrives on Wednesday, get up to speed with your official S1-4 recap. pic.twitter.com/YCurwC5Iwm
— Netflix UK & Ireland (@NetflixUK) November 7, 2022
ICYMI, a load of expenny antique valuables were stolen off the set for episode six of The Crown season five, which explores the British royals’ relationship with Soviet Russia.
According to Netflix, 350 items were stolen including a replica 1897 Fabergé egg, the clock face of a William IV grandfather clock, multiple sets of silver and gold candelabras, a dressing table set, St Louis Crystal glassware and Russian religious icons.
None of these items were actually that valuable in terms of resale on to local nonnas on FB marketplace, but they were valuable to the UK film industry as props.
“It’s a shame because it was some of the loveliest antiques that we could actually get our hands on because we were trying to recreate the Russian Imperial family and the wealth of ancient Russia,” Harvey said.
“So there was quite a lot lost, which was very sad. We just made accommodation in the set for what was missing and it was sort of fine, but it was a sad moment.”
Season 5 of The Crown airs tomorrow and you bet I’m going to be eyeing episode six to figure out which items were stolen and which remained.
