NOVEMBER 5 2016 http://www.listener.co.nz 9
TV REVIEW
WILL MCPHAIL/THE CARTOON BANKDrama queens
“It’s so obviously
intended to woo
millennials I was
surprised Vicky
didn’t whip out
her phone for a
selfie during her
coronation.”
I
t’s my firm belief there is a special place in
hell awaiting Julian Fellowes. It will be called
the Lord Grantham Circle of Endless Tosh, or
perhaps the Lady Crawley Chamber of Eternal
Cliché, and there he will burn for all eternity for
services to television drama.
Baron Fellowes, of course, is the fellow
responsible for Downton Abbey, the most successful
British costume drama in history, but also one of
the greatest loads of old rubbish made.
Pretentious, empty-headed and risible, Downton
is thankfully gone. However, in TVNZ 1’s new Brit
drama Victoria, the spirit of Fellowes’ silly soap
lives on. Well, more than lives on. The eight-part
ITV-made production dramatising the early reign
of Queen Victoria is like Downton on steroids, lots
and lots of steroids.
Lavish frocks and opulent sets? Tick. Lots of
horse riding through handsome parks? Tick.
English Roses, scheming servants and gossipyVictoria, the melodrama, is
like Downton on steroids,
while The Durrells is more
like the terrific Love in a
Cold Climate.
“Well; this conversation isn’t going to end itself.”
melodrama? Tick, tick, tick. But then
on top of all that flummery, there’s
the extra visual confection of palaces,
crowns and state balls.
Of course here, in place of Fellowes’
fictional farce in an Edwardian
country house, we have history. And,
inevitably, Victoria has been accused
in Britain of being all over the place
historically. I don't think it matters,
not only because it’s just TV but
because we now live in a post-factual
Trumpland anyway.
No, it’s for melodrama, not history,
that Victoria should be sent to join
Downton in the Tower, because Victo-
ria is like Buckingham Palace 90210.
Episode one seemed to be about
a hip, feisty young Princess Victoria
(a pretty Jenna Coleman) and her
struggle to, like, be herself and rule
as the new Queen in a man’s world.
It would’ve been, like, sooooo much
easier if weren’t for her interfering
mum, who’s never been supportive.
Fortunately, this hot older guy,
Lord M (the still smouldering Rufus
Sewell), helped her out, particularly
after she got drunk and shouty at a
party and then accused another girl
of being pregnant, only for
the girl to die of a stomach
tumour. But, like, because
Vicky believed in herself, it
all turned out all right in the
end.
Urgh. It’s all so obviously
intended to woo millennials
that I was actually surprised
Vicky didn’t whip out her
phone for a selfie during her
coronation.
Still, the pomp and
circumstance will drag in the
oldies, too; as the historian
Simon Schama has said, noth-
ing beats British televisiondrama for servicing the instincts of
cultural necrophilia.
And I suspect it doesn’t matter how
formulaic or steeped in ersatz olde
England it is, Victoria will be hugely
popular just like Downton because
plenty of us love nothing better than
lying back imagining ourselves as
a toff with a palace full of servants.
Why else would Downton have the
dubious distinction of creating a
huge worldwide demand for Brit-
ish butlers? I shudder to think what
Victoria might spawn. A revival of
brutal colonialism?A
drama queen of a more
modest sort can be found in
Prime’s The Durrells, a delicious
adaptation of British naturalist Gerald
Durrell’s trio of memoirs of his 1930s
childhood.
The excellent Keeley Hawes is
Louisa Durrell, a middle-class widow
and flustered mother of four, who,
struggling with debt, moves her
infuriating brood to Corfu, only to
find herself in a beautiful rustic hell.
Written by Simon Nye (Men
Behaving Badly), it is in tone very
much like the terrific early 80s
adaptation of Love in a Cold Climate,
and those keen on azure seas and
Greek sunsets will be pleased. It’s also
laugh-out-loud funny.
As with Victoria, you may write it
off as yet more cultural necrophilia.
Fortunately, Louisa and her brood
are different sorts of Brits from Her
Majesty. “The English come in all
kinds,” Louisa told a local, who
assumed she had money, “and we
are the poor kind.”
The hugely more entertaining kind,
too. l
VICTORIA, TVNZ 1, Sunday, 8.30pm;
THE DURRELLS, Prime, Wednesday, 8.30pm.GREG
DIXON