There is nothing like a Dame with a penchant for put-downs
Secret tunnels connect Buckingham Palace to another royal residence, clarence House, and to the Houses of Parliament. After World War II, the Queen Mother persuaded her husband George VI to go exploring them.
Deep below the palaces, they met a homeless man who had made his refuge down there. He was a Geordie, the Queen Mum later recounted, and ‘very courteous’.
So if you watched Victoria (ItV) with a sceptical eye, scoffing at the story of the urchin boy living secretly in the Buck House kitchens, remember that stranger things have happened.
In fact, ‘Boy Jones’ as he became known in the Press, was a real-life denizen of the palace cellars. Young actor tommy rodger, kitted out in cap and rags like the Artful Dodger, imagined him hiding under the tables at banquets to snaffle the champagne — and why not? the real Boy Jones was once discovered under the Queen’s sofa.
though this Sunday night series is a thoroughbred romantic drama, writer Daisy Goodwin likes to pepper it with historical figures and quotes. Sometimes these can be clunky, such as Prime Minister robert Peel’s remark, as he inspected an early mechanical adding machine, that ‘one day, computing machines will be able to do the work of men’. But other lines have a subtle strength — for example, former PM Lord Melbourne’s acid comment that the poet Byron ‘always looked as though every room belonged to him’.
Why would the urbane Lord M want to disparage a long- dead scribbler? the answer is obvious: the politician’s wife was the notorious Lady caroline Lamb, who had a brazen affair with Byron and even wrote a novel about it.
the one-liners are among this opulent costume drama’s enduring attractions.
Dame Diana rigg, as an acerbic lady-in-waiting, had two of the best: she told her blushing niece, ‘You look like a strawberry’ — and later, after an evening of theatricals, she sniffed: ‘Shakespeare and polite society do not mix.’
But the plum of the night went to Uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians, who smarmily complimented the Queen: ‘You are, like all the women in our family, pleasingly fecund.’
If you’re a devotee of royal tV melodrama, you might have lapped up the crown on Netflix — but did you spot that Alex Jennings, who plays oily Leopold, was also the disgraced Duke of Windsor and erstwhile edward VIII? that’s the power of make-up, not to mention fine acting.
tom Burke, as the private detective hero of Strike: The Cuckoo’s Calling (BBc1), was fine-acting his sock off. It’s sock, singular, because ex- soldier cormoran Strike has only got the one leg.
Burke has done all he can to ensure his prosthetic limb doesn’t steal every scene.
He has perfected a walk that, while not quite a limp, hints that his stump is chafing him something wicked.
But the script made his task difficult by having him talk to the artificial leg every time he unbuckled it. the leg didn’t talk back — it was even more morose than Strike himself.
It took top billing, though, in the climactic brawl when a demented lawyer ripped the fake limb free and attempted to beat Strike to death with it.
this series has lashings of noir atmosphere and the lead characters — a wounded detective and his sassy sidekick (Holliday Grainger) — are engaging if slightly hackneyed.
But Strike, a man whose idea of personal grooming is to suck a toothbrush at his desk, is too smelly to be appealing. And his next adventure needs to be less like a strip cartoon.
BELLYFLOP OF THE WEEKEND: Former England cricket captain Freddie Flintoff wanted to make a big impact with his new gameshow Cannonball (C4). But the water-park larks are just endless footage of splash landings . . . more duck than dive.