Victoria Is Returning To Our Screens – Here’s What You Need To Know

“Series three begins in 1848, a time of political turmoil in Europe. Monarchs are losing their thrones and Victoria has to wonder if she will be next and grapple with what it means to be a Queen,” says Daisy Goodwin, the show’s creator and writer. And it’s no less tumultuous behind closed doors – Victoria and Prince Albert, played by rumoured real-life couple Jenna Coleman and Tom Hughes, may be the most famous couple of the 19th century, “but underneath the united facade, their relationship is at breaking point and it’s a struggle for mastery that neither side can win,” adds Daisy. “Over the series, she and Albert clash over the role of the monarchy. Victoria wants to give her people what they want, whilst Albert thinks the role of a monarch is to give the subjects what they need. He is horrified by her need for popular approval, and she is alarmed by his disregard of the press.”
 
At this point, Victoria’s heavily pregnant with her sixth child, experiencing problems with her eldest son Bertie (“Today he’d be diagnosed as dyslexic, but then he was just considered slow”) and has the troublesome but charismatic Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, played by a swaggering Laurence Fox, to contend with. Victoria can’t abide him, and nor can the Prime Minister, “but he’s forced to have him in his cabinet because he is so popular in the party. A situation which is not unknown today,” observes Daisy. “In fact, as I was writing series three, I was continually struck by the parallels between the 19th century and our own – the populist movements at home and abroad, womanising, foreign secretaries, and national suspicion of ‘foreigners’, as well as press intrusion and the mismanagement of public health. There were days when I found it difficult to remember which century I was in.”
 
Jenna believes Palmerston’s presence irked Victoria for several reasons, not least the lack of “deference she felt she deserved”: “There was also a battle between them for the people’s affections and Victoria wasn’t used to competition in that area. Ultimately, she just wants to be supported and adored by her subjects. She always wrote about it.”
 
As the series continues, her froideur towards Palmerston begins to thaw and she becomes fonder of him. “He’s always somewhere between being invited over for tea and being thrown out, you never know which side of the fence she is sat on with him.”
 
However things remain tense between Victoria and Albert. “The core difference between Victoria and Albert is Albert is very methodical whereas Victoria is emotionally led,” remarks Jenna. “They operate completely differently and have always been yin and yang, but they seem to have fallen out of balance with each other.”
 
Difficulties in the couple’s homelife are exacerbated by the unexpected arrival of Victoria’s older half-sister Feodora, played by Kate Fleetwood, whose smiling façade hides ambiguous intentions. “There is unspoken resentment and history between these two. Victoria resents Feodora for leaving her when she married; Feodora resents Victoria for being the heir and so the focus of attention. It’s a really difficult relationship.” Victoria doesn’t trust Feodora  – with good reason – as we witness her scheming.
 
“Feodora plays Albert brilliantly, preying on a weakness she might not even realise he has,” comments Tom. “He and Victoria are distant and with the invisible string between them fraying, he needs the void of the female figure in his life. Feodora sweeps in and fills that.”
 
Tom isn’t surprised there were factions between the royal couple. “They got married at 19, add the weighted responsibility of their day jobs, the amount of children they have, Albert’s issues of identity and Victoria’s issues of having been mollycoddled. It’s evident they both have a great deal of growing up to do, but there’s not always the space needed for them to do that.”
 
The series culminates in The Great Exhibition of 1851, famously masterminded by Albert. “I don’t know if The Great Exhibition changed a lot politically, but as an art exhibition it exposed people to things they’d never have had the opportunity to see – it was unquestionably magnificent,” says Tom, but the effort came at a personal price. “The pressure is immense. If he fails at that he will never recover and so he risks it all. The Albert before and after The Great Exhibition are significantly different people.”
 
We will have to see how Daisy decides to navigate the ensuing years, including Albert’s premature death in 1861 at the age of 42. There is the suggestion that, like The Crown, older actors will be introduced to mark the passing of time so Jenna’s relishing the opportunity to play Victoria’s “lack of filter, frankness and honesty” while she can. “They used to write about her having a ‘combustible’ but Victoria didn’t have to answer to anybody, so could get angry within her own house,” reveals Jenna. “Victoria would feel mortified after these ‘combustibles’ and would cry and apologise to Albert but she ping pongs through emotions rapidly. As she gets older, she becomes even less controlled, so it is fun to age with her.”
 
Victoria returns Sunday 24th March 2019 on ITV at 9pm.