Is that a retouched Kardashian or Queen Victoria hiding her chins?
Selfies, shameless self-promotion, even Photoshopping . . . any good historian will tell you that these 21stcentury traits were actually a product (like everything else) of the Victorian era.
But Professor lucy Worsley went one better, in her Royal Photo Album (BBC4). she proved they were invented by Victoria and her family themselves.
it’s common knowledge that Prince Albert brought the tradition of the Christmas tree to Britain, but nobody guessed he and his queen were also responsible for the birth of social media.
Vic and Bert loved photography so much, we learned, that they had a darkroom installed at Windsor Castle. Their photographs shaped the image of the royals as Britain’s first family, ordinary decent folk beneath all the grandeur.
The Queen’s daughter-in-law, Alexandra — later Queen herself — owned one of the first portable box cameras, shooting informal snaps on film that would be published in a bestselling book.
Alexandra posed herself, with a royal sprog riding piggyback behind her, in an image that would become one of the most celebrated photos of the 19th century. Another was the portrait of Victoria as empress of india in 1885 — the negative painted and scraped by a photo artist to disguise her double chin and remove her wrinkles. even back then, one had to keep up with the Kardashians . . .
Prof lucy had so much absorbing material here that she didn’t need to resort to her usual dressing-up games. she didn’t need to . . . but of course she did, with a different costume for almost every shot.
After a while, i ceased to notice. Yes, she introduced the documentary by riding up the Mall towards Buckingham Palace in an open landau, waving to imaginary crowds. Then she started telling us how Cecil Beaton created an aura of camp and romance for his first portraits of our Queen — who was then still Princess elizabeth — and Prof lucy’s own camp, romantic attire no longer mattered.
it was slightly shocking to learn that Beaton borrowed the background for one photograph from an 18th-century painting by Jean-Honore fragonard, called The swing. if you don’t know the picture, it shows a young lady all in pink on a high swing, kicking off a silk slipper, while her beau lies on the ground looking up her petticoats. Quite saucy, Cecil. Minutes later, Prof lucy was reclining on a chaise longue and brandishing a cigarette in a long holder as she told us all about Princess Margaret’s affairs . . . but that was tame by comparison.
There was more sauce, and plenty of it, on The Great British Sewing Bee (BBC1).
Contestants, male and female, are queuing up to flirt with judge Patrick Grant, he of the edwardian moustache and the elegant tailoring.
Challenged to make a rugby shirt from scratch, a sewing enthusiast called Mark pursed his lips and told him: ‘i could see you in tight rugby shorts.’ The urbane Patrick didn’t even blush. Presenter Joe lycett, bouncing round the studio in a spangly tracksuit, crowed that the last time he met a rugby player, he scored a conversion.
The last comedian who could get away with a gag like that before the watershed was larry Grayson.
This format is so briskly and surely edited now that every challenge flies by. every one of the contestants is a character, from Peter in his fez to Clare with her forties hairdo.
it doesn’t matter if you don’t know what a cross-stitch is, or where your bias binding should go. The sewing Bee is a mischievous joy.
EAR-BASHING OF THE WEEK:
Brothers Ryan, Scott and Adam Thomas never stopped yelling as they charged around the slums on Absolutely India: Mancs In Mumbai (ITV). All that bellowing . . . maybe they made each other deaf as children.