royalty
Charles I: Killing a King, BBC Four review - sad stories of the death of kingsWednesday, 18 December 2019
This three-part series by historian Lisa Hilton is a follow-up to her previous effort from last July, Charles I: Downfall of a King (BBC Four). That examined his disastrous fall from power, and this first new programme opened just before Christmas... Read more... |
The Crown, Series 3, Netflix review - if you want binge TV, there's none finerMonday, 18 November 2019
Although it conforms to a realistic chronology of events, this third season of Peter Morgan’s remarkable voyage around the House of Windsor (on Netflix) has the feel of a sequence of standalone dramas, linked together by its interrelated characters... Read more... |
Downton Abbey review – business as usualThursday, 12 September 2019
Despite the fact that the Downton Abbey 2015 Christmas special wrapped the series up with a seemingly watertight bow, a cinema offering of Julian Fellowes’ much-loved creation was perhaps inevitable. And so virtually all of the series cast... Read more... |
A. N. Wilson: Prince Albert review - entertaining bio is a total treatSunday, 01 September 2019
Albertopolis! The Royal Albert Hall, the Albert Memorial and countless Albert Squares, Roads and Streets all commemorate Britain’s uncrowned king. In this mesmerising biography, novelist and historian A. N. Wilson’s admiration and affection for... Read more... |
Prince Albert: A Victorian Hero Revealed, Channel 4 review - dramatic documentary filled with intelligent detailSaturday, 24 August 2019
It may sound perverse to say it, but Albert was the perfect twenty-first century prince. Thrust into the heart of the British monarchy he was simultaneously an oppressed outsider who – despite his reputation as the most handsome prince in Europe (... Read more... |
Edinburgh Fringe reviews 2019: On the Other Hand, We're Happy / Daughterhood / The Shark Is BrokenSaturday, 10 August 2019
On the Other Hand, We’re Happy Summerhall ****This affecting co-production between Paines Plough and Theatr Clywd of Daf James’s play takes a sideways look at adoption.Twentysomethings Abbi (Charlotte Bate) and Josh (Toyin Omari-Kinch) have been... Read more... |
Charles I: Downfall of a King, BBC Four review - beheaded monarch upstaged by exotic presenterWednesday, 10 July 2019
“I want to discover how our government could fall apart and the country become bitterly divided in just a few weeks,” historian Lisa Hilton announced at the start of her BBC Four account of the traumatic demise of Charles I. In a mere 50 days in... Read more... |
Her Majesty's Cavalry, ITV review - my kingdom for a horseWednesday, 05 June 2019
If you should happen to be loitering in London’s Knightsbridge at 4am, don’t panic if you find yourself surrounded by the massed horsemen of the Household Cavalry. When they need to rehearse for great occasions like the Queen’s birthday, they can... Read more... |
Victoria, Series 3, ITV review - can Her Maj cope with the Age of Revolution?Monday, 25 March 2019
ITV has an enviable knack for creating populist historical costume dramas which never seem to wear out, despite a million rotations on ITV3. Once everybody had got over the shock of a young and glamorous Queen Victoria, who had previously... Read more... |
Un ballo in maschera, Welsh National Opera review - opera as brilliant self-parodyMonday, 11 February 2019
Why is Un Ballo in maschera not as popular as the trio of Verdi masterpieces – Rigoletto, Traviata, Trovatore – that, with a couple of digressions, preceded it in the early 1850s? Its music is scarcely less brilliant than theirs, and if its plot is... Read more... |
Mary Queen of Scots review - Saoirse Ronan and Margot Robbie excelSaturday, 19 January 2019
Very much a woman of today, the Catholic Stuart heroine (Saoirse Ronan) of Mary Queen of Scots frequently hacks her way out of a thicket of power-hungry males, enjoys it when her English suitor Lord Darnley (Jack Lowden) goes down on her, and is... Read more... |
Queen of the World, ITV review - born to run and runWednesday, 26 September 2018
Awesome numbers: over a million miles, the equivalent of 42 times around the globe, have been traversed by Her Majesty the Queen, enabling visits over the past seven decades or so to 117 different countries. No one has reigned longer nor travelled... Read more... |
