Rob Beckett has revealed he almost landed a key role in the fourth season of The Crown.
On Friday night, Rob was a guest on Graham Norton’s BBC talk show, where he was joined on the famous red sofa by Claire Foy.
With Claire having famously portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in the award-winning Netflix drama, the stand-up comedian couldn’t resist sharing that he too almost came close to appearing in the series a couple of years ago.
However, it wasn’t a royal role that he was in the running for.
“You know there was that decorator that broke into the palace and spoke to the Queen?” Rob recalled. “Yeah? That was me.
“That’s what I auditioned for. I auditioned three times. Got close, didn’t I?”
In the fifth episode of The Crown’s fourth season, Fagan, the show tells the story of Michael Fagan, a man who was struggling financially in Margaret Thatcher’s Britain, who managed to break into Buckingham Palace and make it as far as the Queen’s bedroom.
Fagan was portrayed by Bodyguard actor Tom Brooke in the episode.
Rob admitted he was not too disappointed to have lost out on the role as The Crown is such a “big show”, adding: “I thought I’d done really well. I got some really good feedback…
“It would have been exciting for me because I’ve done lots of comedy acting and this was quite a straight role. The guy was having a bit of a breakdown.”
The fifth season of The Crown debuted on Netflix last year, although it received considerably more mixed reviews than its predecessor.
A sixth and final series is currently being filmed.
The Graham Norton Show airs on Friday nights at 10.40pm on BBC One.