Netflix insists it won't add a disclaimer to The Crown to clarify it's fictional

Netflix has insisted it will not broadcast a disclaimer at the start of The Crown to highlight it is a fictional drama.

The streaming giant has come under pressure in recent weeks to make some sort of announcement to viewers at the start of each episode.

A government minister has written to Netflix asking it to do more amid concern that the Royal Family has been unfairly portrayed in a less than flattering light.

But Netflix is holding firm, arguing that viewers understand perfectly well that The Crown is a “work of fiction”.

The Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden said last week that he feared a younger generation of viewers “may mistake fiction for fact.”

Netflix has now confirmed that the minister wrote to them to make the request, but that it has rejected the idea.

A Netflix spokesperson said: "We have always presented The Crown as a drama - and we have every confidence our members understand it's a work of fiction that's broadly based on historical events.

"As a result we have no plans - and see no need - to add a disclaimer."

The media giant has written back to the Culture Secretary to make that clear.

The current series, Season 4, has been particularly difficult for the Royal Family as it has dramatised the romance and wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer and the subsequent strains and tensions which led to the break up of their marriage.

It has shown Prince Charles re-igniting his romance with the then Camilla Parker-Bowles.

The Royal Family is often shown as dysfunctional and cold hearted and unable to give Princess Diana the care that she craved.

Whilst some of the scenes are loosely based on historical events, sources in the Royal Household stress that no-one knows what was said in private conversations other than those in the room at the time.

Similarly, the weekly meetings of the Prime Minister and The Queen are held in a private room and the conversations between the Monarch and her head of government are never shared.

Given the Queen, Prince Philip, Charles and Camilla are all still alive, it has made for even more uncomfortable viewing that previous seasons of The Crown.

Royal aides also say it’s been particularly difficult for Princes William and Harry to have the break-down of their parents’ marriage raked over in such detail.

Netflix however insists it has received only 12 complaints in the UK about Season 4.

And it points to how the cast and creators regularly talk about the show’s fictional nature in interviews and podcasts.

Given season 4 has created such controversy for the Royal Family, you wonder what season 5 might do as it moves into the period of the 1990s – which has often been called the worst decade for the Royal Family.

The 1990s includes the divorces of Charles and Diana, Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson, several sex scandals, the death of Princess Diana and the Windsor Castle fire in 1992 – which the Queen herself describe as her “annus horribilis.”