Look away Ma’am!
... you will NOT be amused by the f irst gay kiss on TV’s Victoria (now that’s what you call a highland f ling!)
IT WOULD have been the most shocking of sights for the famously staid Monarch – two men locked in a passionate embrace, in defiance of the harsh laws and morals of Victoria’s reign.
Tonight, ITV drama Victoria will broadcast its first gay kiss, with the dashing Edward Drummond finally getting caught up in a moment of ardour with Lord Alfred Paget, as the Royal court travels to Scotland.
Eight million viewers have been watching the slow buildup in the men’s feelings over the past few weeks.
And in one scene tonight, a woman asks Lord Alfred what he thinks of the view. ‘Heavenly,’ he replies – before the camera cuts to show him staring at Drummond. However, t heir happiness could be short-lived because their lakeside tryst is spotted.
Both are real historical figures. Lord Paget, played by Jordan Waller, was an equerry to the Queen, while Drummond, played by Leo Suter, was Prime Minister Robert Peel’s private secretary.
Daisy Goodwin, the show’s writer, admitted she had been ‘ creative’ in her interpretation of history. ‘ Some people might get very cross with me,’ she said. ‘But if it did happen, we would never know.
‘The word homosexual did not exist in those times. There were as many gay people as there are now, but they didn’t define themselves as straight or gay or bisexual.’
Goodwin said it was difficult to say how the Queen herself – played by Jenna Coleman on screen– would have reacted to the kiss. ‘Famously she didn’t t believe there could have e been such a thing as lesbians,’ she said. ‘But I think Victoria was a lot more e tolerant than she was made e out to be.’
Victoria is on IT Vatt 9pm tonight.