The meticulous and confidential planning for Sir Winston Churchill's (John Lithgow) funeral, known as 'Operation Hope Not', began 12 years before his death, in 1953, after he suffered a severe stroke. The plan was developed according to Queen Elizabeth II's instructions that in the event of Churchill's death, he should be buried "on a scale befitting his position in history". His state funeral lasted four days, from the 26th to the 30th of January 1965.
On display on a sideboard is a model of the aviary Lord Snowdon designed for London Zoo, which had just opened in 1964.
Just as in Alan Bennett's play A Question of Attribution (1991), this episode features a scene where Queen Elizabeth II, privately advised of Anthony Blunt's historic espionage activities for communist Russia, has a barbed conversation with Blunt, ostensibly about art but actually about treason. British tabloid The Daily Mail's front page headline after Blunt's exposure read, "Traitor at the Queen's Right Hand": in reality, as Bennett acknowledged, the queen is unlikely to have been particularly close to her family's resident expert on baroque paintings.
Martin Furnival Jones (Angus Wright) was MI5's Director-General from 1965 to 1972. During his tenure, long inquiries into possible Soviet intelligence infiltration to MI5 surfaced, without being proven. Nonetheless, he was able to protect the agency from rumors that it had schemed to destabilize the Government of Prime Minister Harold Wilson (Jason Watkins), which were eventually proven to be true.
Olivia Colman (Queen Elizabeth II) and Helena Bonham Carter (Princess Margaret) both previously played Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, the mother of their characters. Colman played her in "Hyde Park on Hudson (2012)" and Bonham-Carter in "The King's Speech (2010)."