(Tom
Hughes as Prince Albert & Jenna Coleman as Queen Victoria)
Victoria, the much-acclaimed and award-winning historical drama series,
returns for a third season to South African television screens at 20h00 on
Monday, June 3, 2019, on ITV Choice.
Once again starring Jenna Coleman in the
title role, alongside Tom Hughes who plays her husband Prince Albert, the new
series will also feature Kate Fleetwood as Princess Feodora of Leiningen,
Victoria’s half-sister as well as Laurence Fox as Foreign Secretary Lord
Palmerston, John Sessions as Prime Minister John Russell and Lily Travers as
the Duchess of Monmouth.
The series begins in 1848 - a time of
political turmoil in Europe. Monarchs are losing their thrones and Victoria has
to wonder if she will be next. She also has to grapple with what it means to be
a Queen and she clashes with Albert over the role of the monarchy. Victoria
wants to give her people what they want, whilst Albert thinks the role of a
monarch is to give the subjects what they need. He is horrified by her need for
popular approval, and she is alarmed by his disregard of the press.
In addition to all this, Victoria is not
only pregnant with her sixth child, but they are having problems with Bertie,
the Prince of Wales who unlike his older sister Vicky, shows no aptitude for
learning and is wilfully disobedient. These days, he would be diagnosed as
dyslexic, but then he was just considered slow.
The couple’s difficulties are compounded by
the arrival of Feodora, Victoria’s older half-sister whose feelings for her
sibling are complicated to say the least. Victoria has everything - position,
wealth, a happy marriage - that Feodora does not, and Feodora knows who she
holds responsible for this state of affairs.
To add to the tension, there is a
troublesome Foreign Secretary in the shape of Lord Palmerston who shows no
respect for Victoria and Albert’s fellow sovereigns in Europe, and who seems to
have a Teflon-coated popularity with the British public. He is equally
unpopular with the Prime Minister Lord John Russell who is forced to have him
in his cabinet because he is so popular in the party. A situation which is not
unknown today!
Says series writer Daisy Goodwin: "As
I was writing this series, I was continually struck by the parallels between
the 19th century and our own situation today. Populist movements at home and
abroad: womanising, foreign secretaries, and national suspicion of
‘foreigners’, as well as press intrusion and the mismanagement of public
health. There were days when I found it difficult to remember which century I
was in!"
Indeed, writing in the UK Metro, critic
Keith Watson says: "Coleman and Hughes are perfectly cast as the royal
couple and there’s good fun in the addition of Lord Palmerston, a randy rake of
a foreign secretary played as Boris Johnson with cheekbones. But best of all is
how it makes history feel like it’s happening now."
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