Saturday, November 3, 2007

All the Queen's Men

Not to be outdone by Martin Scorsese, whose film "Young Victoria" -- which focuses on the queen's courtship and marriage to Prince Albert -- hits screens in 2008, Channel 4 (UK) has reportedly commissioned a drama-documentary about the queen's love life to air next year.

Of the Scorsese film, screenwriter Julian Fellowes says: "Everyone thinks they know [Queen Victoria] but 99 per cent of the public don’t know anything about the story we are telling and will be surprised. People think of a fat widow in black. They’ve forgotten the exciting young woman trying to find her own way. Some girls like to have fun and she was certainly one of them.”

[For photos from the filming, see my 13 October post.]

"Victoria’s Men" (the working title of the 90-minute Channel 4 program), will take a closer look at the queen's relationships with, er, men. Producers are basing it on her diary and testimony from historians.

Editorial director Fiona Stourton explains: "The program aims to reverse the commonly held image of Queen Victoria as a rather dour, serious character and to reveal that she was a very passionate woman who was capable of great warmth -- as is revealed in her relationships with a series of men during her life."

By this time next year, everyone should be thoroughly disabused of the notion that the queen was an ice-princess.

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