A queen ruled by her hormones

Victoria ITV, Sunday

Porridge BBC Two, Sunday

The Night Of Sky Atlantic, Thursday

elevision is currently obsessed with the British monarchy. Later this year, Netflix will release The Crown, about the life of Elizabeth II, in a drama that has cost about the same amount as the Queen’s private art collection. This week a drama about the former longest serving monarch, began its eight-part run. Presumably Amazon has a 20-part Lady Jane Grey biopic up its sleeve and we await Channel 5’s Fergie – the Wilderness Years with interest.

Anyway, Victoria didn’t shilly-shally. No sooner had we established what century we were in with a man on the horse and a ruffled shirt or two, than William IV was dead and Princess Alexandrina Victoria (Jenna Coleman), “Drina” to her friends, acceded. Eighteen, cosseted since birth, she needed help, and fast.

Enter Victoria’s first love in the form of Lord Melbourne, played by Rufus Sewell, a man who oozes so much charm he could have been a slug in a past life.

Given the subject matter, Victoria couldn’t have been anything other than lavishly produced. But it wasn’t merely good to look at: Daisy Goodwin, who wrote the series, has learnt from Julian Fellowes’s Downton Abbey trick of playing off upstairs and downstairs storylines against each other so that, for example, the struggles of a young seamstress and footman were intercut with the struggles of the young Queen.

It’s an effective dramatic device, and it worked to break up what could have been a succession of two-handers – Victoria spent a lot of time getting advice from one or other male advisers.

Coleman was terrific as the young Queen. She played her as equal parts hormonal teen and proto-feminist. Her scenes with Sewell were some of the best bits,

TCriminal Justice, Broadchurch, Shameless). The Night Of,

Oats so simple: Kevin Bishop as Norman Stanley in Porridge