Catch Rufus while you can

IT’S NO surprise that Rufus Sewell stole the show as Lord Melbourne in Victoria last night. It’s the infatuation of an older, worldly man with a young ingénue, with the added emotional vulnerability from his rackety marriage to Lady Caroline Lamb — we like our heroes a bit wounded. And when he confided in Victoria about the death of his son, well, that did it, really.

The great thing is, it’s mostly true. As the biographer of Victoria, A N Wilson, observes: “The love ... between Melbourne and Victoria is one of the most touching ... she called forth in the cynical worldly Whig reserves of tenderness which he had needed to seal up during the humiliations of his marriage.” I hate to say this but in no time he’s going to be displaced by Albert, aka Tom Hughes. Make the most of him.