FORMER Coronation street actress Marcia Warren will play the Queen Mother in the next series of The Crown.
The stage and screen veteran played Gladys Braithwaite in the ITV soap, a lifelong school chum of Weatherfield stalwart Audrey Roberts, played by Sue Nichols.
Marcia, 77, will play the most senior member of the Royal family from the age of 90 onwards in the fifth and penultimate season of The Crown.
The series is expected to end in the late Nineties around the time of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.
Season six is expected to cover the death of the Queen Mother, previously queen to her husband George VI, in 2002 at the age of 101.
Watford-born Marcia has also appeared in BBC1 detective drama Sherlock opposite Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.
She was Penelope in ITV sitcom Vicious, the foul mouthed old lady who befriends the central characters played by Sir Ian McKellen and Sir Derek Jacobi.
Marcia over the role from Marion Bailey, 70, who played the Queen mother in Series three and four, and Victoria Hamilton, 50, who had the part in series one and two.
The casting coincides with bosses of The Crown releasing a first look image of Imelda Staunton as The Queen in the penultimate series.
It features the Harry Potter star as the grey-haired monarch as the story enters the Nineties – the darkest decade of her reign.
Imelda, 65, is the third actress to take on the role after Claire Foy in seasons one and two and Olivia Colman in three and four
She will play Her Majesty in the penultimate and final series of the drama which follows her turbulent life as head of state.
Filming on series five has started this month and the show is likely to be released next year with Dominic West playing her son, Prince Charles, and Elizabeth Debicki playing Princess Diana.
It covers the most traumatic years of her life, with the separation of her two sons from their wives, the great fire at Windsor Castle and the controversy surrounding the death of Princess Diana.
