Victoria and Abdul

Cert: PG; Now showing

In 2010 Abdul Karim’s private journals were released. These previously unknown memoirs told of an extraordinary friendship which had caused great consternation and been largely excised from history.

Karim was a clerk in Agra when he was chosen, largely because of his height, to take the four-month boat trip from India to England, to present a commemorative coin to Queen Victoria.

He became one of her closest friends in the last years of her life and Stephen Frears’s film tells a version of the story.

Queen Victoria (Judi Dench) was almost 70 and exhausted when the young, handsome and very tall Karim (Ali Fazal) arrived in her life. She promoted him from servant to member of the royal household, calling him her Munshi, an Islamic teacher, in order to facilitate their friendship.

At first a source of fascination and then of outrage to other members of the household, Karim and Victoria faced fierce opposition.

Inevitably reminiscent of Mrs Brown, the 1997 film about Victoria (again played by Dench) and her friendship with John Brown, this film feels a little unnecessary. However it is very light and enjoyable. Dench is great, the baddies, including Eddie Izzard as Bertie, are bad, the goodies are good.

It would have benefited from a timeline as it was unclear how long the friendship lasted (14 years) but it is a pleasant, unchallenging film that will please fans of period drama and Dame J.