Victoria episode 1

[seasidesally]

anyone watching

am pretty ignorant about history so am looking forward to this

Gawd. A little Penge goes a very, very long way. I just don't care about him.

The princess who died in childbirth was Princess Charlotte of Wales, the only child of the Prince Regent. Interestingly her husband was Leopold, later King of the Belgians and uncle to both Victoria and Albert.

the only legitimate child, I should have said

I presumed she was the second son's daughter, but aren't they Duke of York, not Duke of Kent?

Yes, but the Duke of York predeceased George IV so the throne passed to the Duke of Clarence, who reigned as William IV. He had a large family of illegitimate children but none of his legitimate ones lived beyond a year or two. Victoria was the daughter of the fourth son, the Duke of Kent.

Indeed George III's children didn't have great matrimonial records. Princess Charlotte was his only grandchild for over 20 years and after her death his middle-ages sons scrabbled around to get married and produce heirs. His daughters were kept under tight control and didn't get married until after his death, by which time they were mostly in their fifties, although one, Princess Sophia had an illegitimate child. The rumour was that said child was fathered by the Duke of Cumberland, who is the villain in ITV's Victoria. He was a shady character, to say the least!

That's quite interesting about the succession. You would have thought, with it being so important to keep the monarchy alive it would have been pressed on them to marry and have children as quickly as possible. Henry viii wasn't very good at having children, neither were his descendants, and the Hanovers were rubbish as well by the looks of it ( apart fromm Victoria) I wonder if it was due to too much intermarrying/ because they all had to marry into European Royalty? It seems the illegitimate children managed to survive infancy, but not the legitimate.

Well, George III was pretty good at having children. He had 15, 13 of whom survived to adulthood.

Very strange how he didn't let his daughters get married. The Princess Royal managed to escape into marriage at about 30 although her groom was famously ugly and they never had kids. The rest of them either died spinsters or married very late in life. Princess Sophia was the only one of them to (allegedly) have a child, possibly fathered by her brother

I just caught up with Victoria today. Fuck me but Rufus is still gorgeous isn't he? Nobody does smouldering like him, and I don't want Albert to show up!

Victoria was described as a podgy and vulgar child, with bulbous eyes. She was very much a Hanoverian (a bit like poor Princess Beatrice today). I'm struggling a bit to get past Jemma's delicate beauty (it was the same with Emily Blunt, they're both more Princess Margaret than Queen Vic for me). However, the acting is superb and as a pp said, the claustrophobia of court is clear. I'm enjoying the servants' sub plots too. Eve Myles is great as Mrs Jenkins.

Enjoying this -love historical drama, but annoyed at the idiocy of displaying Die Fledermaus in the subtitles as the music for the dance at the Coronation Ball ....when this work was written about 40 years later!

I missed the Die Fledermaus! I would definitely have been huffing about that.

I'm too musically ignorant to have picked up on the Die Fledermaus issue, but yes, I can imagine that it annoyed music buffs. It's an easy enough thing to check and get right.

I think this kind of thing is what spoils historical drama for me. How hard is it to check the historical accuracy of a piece of music?

Those shots of London rooftops at night...kept hearing Dick Van Dyke......Chim Chiminee Chim Chiminee.......

I don't think they care too much about accuracy, given they've cast Rufus as Lord M!

Agree^

I'd love to see them ravage each other.It's very distracting .

Lord Melbourne wasn't that unattractive was he? If this is anything to go by? Or maybe I'm getting old.

He wasn't, but he was also nearly 60 to Victoria's 18! Rufus and Jenna are 48 and 30.

(It's not the first time they've sexed him up either - he was played by Paul Bettany in The Young Victoria.)

Oooh..M is quite fit! I would...........

If Rufus is 48, they could quite easily have "aged" him to make him look older and still quite fit. And more realistic.

Mind you, realism doesn't seem to be a feature of the programme. All a bit...sanitary? The servants look too clean, for starters.

I'm enjoying it!
But really eye opening as to how little control the actual queen was given

Ian Hyland has just said on Twitter, that the next episode isn't very good, and if they don't pull their fingers out soon it will get slaughtered by Poldark in the ratings. Actually I think it will get slaughtered by Poldark anyway but still. Why have ITV put up against that? It's alright, but not brilliant, and not historically accurate at all. I wouldn't chose to watch it over Poldark, which ive been waiting for for AGES!

Caught up with the first two episodes just now. Rufus Sewell is lovely as ever (to the PP who mentioned him as Charles II yes!!)

I think all the downstairs focus is also to set up Abert's economising of the household.

The ads are so irritatingly frequent and break the continuity so badly that I would imagine that anyone who wanted to watch both would watch Poldark and record Victoria to fast forward the ads. I lost interest in Poldark, so will just watch Victoria. But the ads and the boring Penge nicking the candles will make me more likely to record it and fast forward through.

The actress playing Victoria is far too beautiful. She's all limpet Disney eyes and flawless skin rather than the plain faced pudding we know Victoria to have been. I just find it next to impossible to accept that she's Victoria.

What next? Charlize Theron playing the young Maggie Thatcher?