If the crown fits…

Real-life couple Jenna Coleman and Matthew Hughes star as Victoria and Albert.

VICTORIA, BBC FIRST
Tuesdays 8.30pm, Foxtel

The new season of the acclaimed series Victoria goes to air next Tuesday night – following straight on from the repeat screening of series one.
Victoria draws on real-life events and the Queen’s own exhaustive diaries to paint a vivid portrait of her transformation from an impulsive eighteen-year-old to her early years as wife, mother and head of a global empire.
The second series will pick up six weeks after the first. Victoria is now a mother, trying to juggle both family and monarchy – a Victorian era working mother. She also has to deal with a young husband still trying to find his place in the monarchy, the world and the family.
Created and written by novelist Daisy Goodwin, this is a lavish costume drama that follows the young woman who became one of history’s most well-known monarchs.
Jenna Coleman – fresh from her role as Clara Osborne in Doctor Who – stars convincingly as the 18-year-old girl who has to grow up quickly and become a great queen in a society still dominated by men and with a controlling mother.
Victoria, with an impressive cast which includes Eve Myles, Tom Hardy and Rufus Sewell (whose absence from episode one of the new series caused a mini meltdown for fans in the UK at the weekend) tries to be a little Downton Abbey – focusing on both the young Queen and her staff, which gives us a wider picture of Victorian society and what was going on around the queen. It also takes a bit of license with history, including probably making a lot more out of her relationship with Lord Melbourne, her advisor and mentor than was really there.
But it is still a fascinating and lavish production that opens a window on to another time and it is an interesting contrast to The Crown which focuses on the next female monarch to reign in Great Britain – Victoria’s great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth. Though they are very different in tone it has been fascinating to watch how similar their husband’s stories are – despite there being a gap of 100 years between them.