Queen Victoria in Her Own Words
“Whatever you wish Ma’am shall be done.”
Disraeli
“…if only they knew me as I am.”
Victoria about her Empire
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There are so many photographs of Queen Victoria towards the end of her 63 year long reign, it is refreshing to have this play with memories of her as a young woman. Julian Machin has edited and retitled Katrina Hendrey’s one-woman show An Evening With Queen Victoria which starred Prunella Scales and was performed for many years. Queen’s exciting link with the previous show is that the voice of the elderly Victoria has been recorded with Prunella Scales speaking the lines. Every word in this show is Victoria’s own as described in her diaries and letters.
The show opens in Osborne House on the Isle of Wight in 1900 where Victoria’s letters and diary are being dictated to her eldest daughter Vicky, the Princess Royal and widow of the German Emperor Frederick III. Grace Darling plays the young Victoria and we have her auto-biographical notes from before her ascendance to the throne, aged 18 in 1837, on the death of her uncle William IV.
There are notes saying she was told to practise the piano more and how much she enjoyed riding in the park and going to the opera. But where we really appreciate this attractive young woman is in her excitement at meeting her cousins. The first time she meets Ernest and Albert she finds them not very good looking, but by the time she and Albert are both 17, in the ballroom, dancing the quadrille, she is taken with his handsome demeanour and his very blue eyes. It is an ordinary young woman who asks the fatherly Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister, at her coronation whether he likes her dress?
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We hear how she longs to be alone with her husband. They were both 21 when married in 1840. There are the losses of her mother in 1851 and her husband in 1862 and mention of her gratitude for Tennyson’s poem In Memoriam written especially for her. After Albert’s death she stays in Scotland, loving the Highlands and Balmoral and mentioning her companion John Brown.
Sara Crowe takes over as Victoria in her later years. She takes an interest in India, learns Hindi through Abdul Karim “the Munshy” her attendant. I feel considerably warmed towards this monarch after hearing her thoughts. There is comedy too not least when poor Vicky sat on a wasp’s nest in Scotland. This show which is beautifully acted and directed will appeal to anyone with an interest in history. “From my heart, I thank my beloved people – God bless them . . . If only they knew me as I am.”
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Production Notes
Queen
Adapted by Julian Machin
Written by Katrina Hendry
Based on An Evening with Queen Victoria
Directed by Denise Silvey
Cast
Starring:
Grace Darling
Sara Crowe
The voice of Prunella Scales
Creatives
Director: Denise Silvey
Costume Design: Alice McNicholas
Lighting Designer: Mike Robertson
Choreographer: Bret Jones
Music: Richard Burnett
Pianist: Michael Dussek
Information
Running Time: One hour ten minutes without an interval
Booking to 25th August 2024 at 1pm
Theatre:
Assembly Rooms
The Drawing Room
54 George Street
Edinburgh EH2 2LR
Then playing at the Tabard Theatre, London,
from 4-7 September 2024
https://tabard.org.uk/whats-on/queen/.
Reviewed by Lizzie Loveridge
at the Assembly Rooms
on 4th August 2024