VICTORIA
STV, 9pm
JENNA Coleman plays the young queen in this new series about the early years of her reign.
Tonight, we see Victoria as a young woman in a nightdress with long straggly hair, running around Windsor Castle with her dog. Receiving the news that her uncle is dead and she is now queen provokes no grief, just an impish smile.
This is a Victoria far removed from the famous image of her as a severe, stout widow. Here she is young and beautiful and surrounded by imposing men who assume they can bend the young queen to their will, but the long-haired girl with the spaniel is already showing signs of spark and defiance.
“God save the queen … and all who work for her,” sigh the servants, unhappy at how the young lady is quickly beginning to change.
Her first audience with the
Prime Minister, the “disreputable” Lord Melbourne, a handsome devil in tight trews, shows she is no silly slip of a girl. One by one, the men need to realise they have a new boss and she will not be bullied, even though she is tiny. When she sits on the throne, her little feet dangle: “It is hard to be dignified when your feet are six inches from the floor.”
ARE YOU BEING SERVED?
BBC1, 9pm
WE’RE back in the Grace Brothers department store for this one-off tribute to the famous sitcom. The set looks exactly the same, and the new cast are uncannily similar to their predecessors, so I don’t see the point of this. They haven’t updated it or added a modern slant. It’s just a straight copy.
With good reason, the episode is called You Can’t Teach A New Dog Old New Tricks. There are jokes about bottoms, rearranged underwear, having a man “underneath you”, “perfumed intimate lady wipes”, the lack of nipples on mannequins, taking someone “up the Regal”, and a pussy having a sneezing fit. It’s silly, camp nonsense, performed just like a pantomime.
The show is immediately followed by a modern revival of Porridge, in which a bunch of misguided people think they can replace Ronnie Barker and co.
Both left me feeling vaguely depressed. Sunday night TV is supposed to be cosy, soothing the approach of the damp and dreary Monday! No such luck here.
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