Victoria & Abdul (2017)

SKY CINEMA PREMIERE, 8.00PM ★★★

Stephen Frears’s fascinating real-life tale about the extraordinary friendship between the ageing Queen Victoria (a sensational Judi Dench) and her young Muslim attendant Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal), known as “the Munshi”, is all nostalgia and inertia – a tale ablaze with historical import and contemporary resonance, reduced to commemorative biscuit tin proportions. Eddie Izzard co-stars.