Victoria: Warp and Weft

"They don't need balls. They need bread."

A much better and more substantial episode this week. Victoria is back on track. The conceit of Victoria holding an opulent ball in the middle of the Hungry Forties is a superb fulcrum from which we can explore all kinds of historical and character development. And I don't care about such deliberate inaccuracies such as the fact that Lord Melbourne lived fpr a good seven or so years after the birth of Victoria's second child...

Lord M is clearly dying, getting worse as the episode progresses after his apparent stroke, and this leads to an emotional yet restrained parting with Victoria. His death, interestingly, is juxtaposed with that of Dash; indeed, we deliberately hear Victoria give a funeral speech which seems to be for Lord M until we learn otherwise.. Victoria's old intimates are dying; she has only Albert now.

We learn of the Corn Laws; tariffs to protect the interests of the aristocracy as the poor suffer foreign competition. This is clearly going to be a defining issue for the season, as are the Parliamentary sparring matches between John Bright and Sir Robert Peel. I think the defining issues of the season may have been set. I look forward to it all.

Victoria: The Green-Eyed Monster

"Am I just an ignoramus who has to have things summarised by my husband?"

A somewhat awkward and directionless episode this time, it must be said, despite the clever use of Othello to examine the idea of jealousy between the royal couple. It doesn't really go anywhere or develop Vicky and Albert's relationship notably more than we saw last time.

Vicky suspects Albert of a somewhat unconvincing infatuation with Ada Lovelace, daughter of the notorious Lord Byron, when it’s clear that the nerdy prince is only interested in her and Charles Babbage’s difference engine. This contrived jealousy subplot isn’t really adding anything, and nor is the rehashing of the old debates about the impropriety of Vicky’s friendship with Lord M. Still, Melbourne doesn’t seem to be as well as he lets on.

Elsewhere we get hints of an upcoming affair between Ernest and Miss Cook, and the Coburgs continue to be annoying snobs. Sir Robert Peel continues to impress with his progressive attitude, a contrast to Lord M, while Vicky is pregnant with a second child so soon after the first.

Much though the A plot may be a damp squib, then, the long-term characterisation and plotting continues to impress, as do the performances and direction. I’m sure things will be back to the usual quality next week.

Victoria: An Ordinary Woman

"We've been replaced, Lord Melbourne."

"That's as it should be."

Getting hitched is, sadly, always a political act for a monarch, especially if one's spouse is a German prince. What should his title be? Certainly not "King Consort" says the House of Commons. What should his allowance be? Not as much as the amount King Leopold I of Belgium is getting, says Sir Robert Peel. And what, in fact, should he do as opposed to be? All of this is gendered, of course; none of these issues would be so vexed for a female consort to a king with her uncomplicated title of "queen". Here, in Victoria and Albert, we have a situation where the male appears to be oppressed somewhat by the patriarchy.

Albert is, of course, a clever and principled man; he needs to define a role beyond shagging the queen. He needs an income of his own. Vicky, meanwhile, is anxious lest he find himself a mistress as her uncles tend to do. And the Duke of Wellington makes mischievous Tory noises asking how we can be sure that Albert isn't (shock horror) a Catholic.

Still, it's cute that Albert makes use of a prostitute before the wedding, but only to ask her for sex tips.   The couple are, in the end, married, and we end with a discreet sex scene, although not before Vicky says goodbye to her faithful Lord M. Another well-produced if stylistically conventional episode of period drama.

Victoria: The Clockwork Prince

"I do not need you to tell me what to think, Albert."

"No, Lord Melbourne does."

This is the one in which Albert woos Vicky and then, being queen, she proposes to him, patriarchy or no patriarchy. He's a bit stiff but decent, kind and sympathetic to the viewer, being shown to be very progressive, more so than Lord Melbourne; he appreciates the social commentary of that young Dickens chap.

It's nice to see the penny post being introduced, and Vicky's observation that anyone wanting to send any post must lick her face! We get allusions to the First Afghan War, too, and hints of parliamentary stuff, but it all takes a back seat to Albert.

Miss Skerritt, meanwhile, comes through a test of her honesty that introduces us to her impecunious sister and niece and hints yet more at a very tough background, far from Victoria's. This sort of thing is necessary to provide a context, of course; ordinary people matter a damn sight more than royalty.

This episode may be relatively light on theme, being about a wooing and such forth, but the series continues to be superbly written, shot and acted.

Victoria: Brocket Hall

"I am plagued by uncles!"

We begin with Chartist demonstrations juxtaposed with Vicky's upbeat speech; all is not well in our Vicky's kingdom. And worse, Uncle Leopold, on holiday from being King of the Belgians, has arrived to nag Vicky to marry her first cousin- yes, first cousin, uuurgh- Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg. And, in commoner news, Mrs Jenkins' nephew is to be hung, drawn and quartered for demonstrating with the Chartists, which seems a bit harsh. Still, at least Vicky has got Conroy to bugger off by simply taking advantage of his greed.

The episode asks the question of whether Vicky should marry or not; the shadow of Elizabeth hangs over the episode, with the subtext very much losing the "sub" when Vicky and Lord Melbourne dress up as Elizabeth and Leicester. But she is slowly persuaded that she must marry to perpetuate the Royal bloodline. It sounds trite but is well-written and acted to give the impression of substance.

As well as finally acknowledging the sexual tension between Vicky and Lord Melbourne, the episode tacitly acknowledges the trivialities of Vicky's vicissitudes in comparison to the lives of those among the Chartists. Importantly, it still lets her be likeable as she commutes those horrible traitors' deaths to transportation to Australia; Mrs Jenkins will be relieved. Throughout it all Coleman successfully walks that fine line between naivety and sheer ignorance sufficient for Vicky to retain our sympathies.

We end, however, with Albert's arrival...

Victoria: Ladies in Waiting

"Spreading through the palace like a miasma of corruption..."

This episode Victoria learns the hard way that she has constitutional duties, Lord M will not be prime minister forever and that her ministers must sometimes be Tories as well as Whigs, and she must show no bias towards the man who may be moving from father figure to something else. All while still in her teens. And in the background lurks Conroy, plotting to impose a regency.

Sir Robert Peel's Tories don't come across here- they come close to bringing the Whig government down on the issue of slavery- but they are a fact, as they are today in our increasingly scary future, adrift, friendless and alone in a sea of tariffs and contempt. But I digress.

Below stairs, meanwhile, a metaphor for reform is played out as the attempt to introduce gas lighting uncovers a rat problem which in turn threatens to assist those who wish to label our eat-phobic queen as mad, like her famous America-mislay img grandfather, and this undercurrent provides a great deal of tension throughout. Elsewhere, Miss Skerritt's past in the "nunnery" is uncovered.

All is well in the end; there is no serious doubt as to Victoria's sanity, and a piece of parliamentary skulduggery (in real life Peel, an ambitious man, was reluctant to become PM without a solid majority) keeps Melbourne in post, for now. But has young Vicky learned her lesson?

Victoria: Doll 123

"I know that I am young..."

So begins ITV's big prime time eight part biopic of Queen Victoria, and it's gorgeously shot, designed and costumed, surely deliberately, to look like a contemporary painting from the 1830s. It certainly looks gorgeous and evokes the period well. I'm impressed, too, with the casting, performances and script. The juxtaposition of Victoria's coronation with Lady Flora's humiliating examination is a particular high point. But it all hangs on the performance of Jenna Coleman is a very different part to that of Clara in Doctor Who.

This is not the Victoria of the popular imagination but a young, guileless, well-meaning but perhaps naive young girl of 18, still under the thumb of her mother and self-serving stepfather, and Coleman evokes the innocence and the steel, striking the right balance between regal and naive. Rufus Sewell, too, impresses as the initially jaded Lord Melbourne in spite of being somewhat young for the part at first glance.

I also like the way events downstairs are used as a metaphor for what is happening; initially there are all sorts of "perks" and corrupt practices which are stopped, but Victoria eventually holds back from going too far. And it's nice, as a Doctor Who fan, to see Eve Myles and Tommy Knight; there's even a blink-and-you-miss-it appearance from Tom Price.

The history is, give or take a bit of artistic licence, accurate, strongly evoking an age which was no longer of the regency but not yet "Victorian", with a political undercurrent to everything, Victoria being opposed by the Tory supporters of her Uncle Ernest and supported by the Whig prime minister. It'll be interesting to see if this is followed through.

The ending is superb, as Lord Melbourne gives courage D to a Victoria chastened by her wronging of Lady Flora, saying that she has given him a reason to live after the death of his young son, and she is able to carry on and do her duty in that very strange job of constitutional monarch. This is a good and promising start.

The Illusionist (2006)

“Everything you have seen here has been an illusion.”

This is the first time I’ve seen this film, but I well remember the awkwardness of its coming out at much the same time as The Prestige, which slightly overshadowed it and was largely seen as the better of the two films about Victorian magicians with massive twists. That’s a pity. The Illusionist, considered on its own merits, is a fine film.

The film is set in a semi-historical Vienna of 1900, in the dying days of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and has an interesting political subtext. The villain, Crown Prince Leopold, is fictional (although the emperor is clearly Franz Josef) and at the head of a disturbingly hierarchical class system with the Habsburg monarchy at its apex. The emperor is far more than a figurehead, and the snobbery of the system is seen in various ways- Eisenheim’s romance with the Duchess Von Teschen is star-crossed and forbidden, while Chief Inspector Uhl is limited in his career paths through being far too common to advance much further, especially given the further handicap of his integrity; Paul Giamatti is outstanding.

And yet the Habsburgs are the glue that holds this multi-ethnic empire together, protecting it from the dangers of nationalism and ethnic conflict which would plague this area throughout the Twentieth Century, from the Holocaust to the bloody collapse of Yugoslavia. The empire is archaic and moribund, but the future without the Habsburgs is ominous. Another slight theme is the association of the Crown Prince with rationalism and empiricism and Eisenheim with Madame Blavatsky style spiritualism. This is a little uncomfortable for the sceptics among us, but heigh-ho.

The film centres mainly around an audacious, brilliant and twisty-turny plot with a still, dignified, mysterious hero in Eisenheim (Edward Norton gives an undemonstrative performance but this seems appropriate), a truly unpleasant villain in the Crown Prince (a suitably slimy Rufus Sewell). I shall try to avoid spoilers, but the plotting is glorious and the ending truly satisfying.

The direction, from Neil Burger, is also impressive. I admire the colours in particular, with the sepia element to the opening titles and the pre-Raphaelite look to the flashbacks contrasting with the realism of the “present”. It’s a mystery why the largely American cast should feel the need to adopt vaguely British accents for characters who would have been speaking German, a rather odd Hollywood habit, but otherwise I can find little to pick at. The score, from none other than Philip Glass himself, is also superb.

As far as I can recall this isn’t quite up there with The Prestige. But it deserves better than to be unfavourably compared to a slightly better film. The Illusionist is a superb film in its own right.