VICTORIA’S secret The Queen and Abdul
DAME JUDI ’S NEW FILM FOCUSES ON THE LONELY MONARCH’S CONTROVERSIAL RELATIONSHIP
It was a story that was crying out for a film. Queen Victoria – old, overweight, bored, widowed and still grieving – had pretty much given up and was slowly eating herself to death. Her dissolute son Bertie was impatient to get rid of her so he could be crowned Edward VII.
It was 1887, her Golden Jubilee year, and she was bracing herself for the onslaught of tributes from overseas royalty. Britain had ruled India for the past 29 years and as a gift, she was sent two Indian servants, Mohammed Buksh and Abdul Karim. Abdul, a clerk at the prison in Agra, was 24. He went to the UK for a couple of months and stayed for more than a decade.
Initially his duties were as a servant, but after less than a year, he had become the “Munshi”, the Queen’s teacher (she learnt Urdu from him) and official Indian clerk. Victoria was Empress of India and was fascinated by the country, but she had never been there. She became besotted with Abdul. There were daily lessons, a salary increase, portraits commissioned and he introduced her to curry, which became a staple on royal menus.
As her infatuation increased, her family and the royal household grew increasingly resentful. Racism was fairly endemic at the time and Abdul had started to get a bit uppity.
The Queen put him in charge of the Indian servants, gave him his own cottage, shipped his wife and mother-in-law over from India, put him in his own carriage on the royal train, and his father – a medical assistant in the Agra jail – was awarded a knighthood.
Abdul was devoted to her, but hierarchy was everything in those days. There was a rebellion in the royal household and a stand-off with the Queen. (Even her beloved John Brown, despite his closeness to Victoria, had always remained a servant.)
It was a narrative with a lot of charm but it was bound to end badly. And it did. After Victoria’s death, Abdul’s house was raided by Albert’s royal guards and almost all of the many hundreds of letters from Victoria were destroyed. He was packed off back to India, where his health declined and he died eight years later, aged 46.
But no-one thought to destroy the Queen’s Hindustani journals, a product of her daily lessons with Abdul. And when writer Shrabani Basu was researching a book about curry, she became curious about its prevalence in the Victorian household and equally curious about the portraits of the striking Indian courtier in the Durbar Wing at Osborne House.
She discovered that 13 volumes of the Queen’s Hindustani journals were kept in the archives at Windsor Castle and asked to see them. Then, in Agra, she came upon Abdul Karim’s tomb and tracked down his relatives, which led to the inevitable trunk containing his journals, and new light was thrown on the relationship.
When producer Beeban Kidron (56) first heard about Shrabani’s book, she couldn’t believe her luck. The production company she runs with husband Lee Hall (who wrote Billy Elliot), pitched for the rights and won.
“We wanted to do Victoria & Abdul from the point of view of Abdul, the stranger looking at the strangeness of court.
And for it to be funny and accessible,”says Beeban.
Lee (50) wrote the script and Stephen Frears was asked to direct. And Stephen (76), everyone hoped, might bring in Dame Judi Dench to play Victoria. “Nobody else made sense,” says Stephen.
They had worked together on Philomena (2013), and she had famously played the Queen in John Madden’s Mrs Brown, the 1997 film about her relationship with Scottish servant John Brown (played by Billy Connolly). So it was a nice conceit that, 20 years later, she might play her again.
Did Judi’s heart sink or leap at the idea? It cautiously leapt, Judi (82) tells. “I have sometimes been back to re-examine something, but not in film, only in Shakespeare. But I did think Lee’s screenplay was really very good indeed and I can’t resist Stephen Frears.”
The actress was riveted by the story and had already done the homework in her last foray as Victoria. She cites a particular scene, when to the consternation of the royal household, Victoria took
Abdul to a remote little cottage on the Balmoral estate – where she used to retreat with John Brown and to which she said she would never return after he died.
“They don’t understand anything, those stupid aristocratic fools,” Victoria says of her family in the film. “Toadying around. Jockeying for position... They couldn’t bear me bringing dear
John Brown here. Yet
I was happier here than anywhere in the entire world. Oh, I miss him, Abdul. And
Albert... I am so lonely. Everyone I’ve really loved has died and
I just go on and on.
“No-one really knows what it’s like to be
Queen. I’m hated by millions of people all over the world.
I have had nine children, all vain, and jealous and at loggerheads with each other. And Bertie’s a complete embarrassment. And look at me! A fat, lame, impotent, silly old woman. What is the point, Abdul?”
“It must have been glorious to have somebody to talk to,” admits Judi now. “Somebody to learn from and to exchange ideas with. And she was proprietorial with him; he kind of belonged to her – I’m sure that just having somebody to relax with must have been wonderful for anyone in that position.”
Abdul is played by Bollywood star Ali Fazal (30), alongside a stellar cast: Tim Piggott-Smith (70), Michael Gambon (76),
Olivia Williams (49), Paul Higgins (53) and Eddie Izzard (55). There is even an appearance from Simon Callow (68) as Puccini.
Beeban and Stephen went to India to find their leading man. After Ali’s audition, Stephen said, “I can see Queen Victoria being quite taken with him,” then he came to the UK for a screen test, his first time in the country. Stephen instructed him to watch Peter Sellers in Being There as a reference.
“I remember reading
Victoria’s letters,” says Ali. “The ones that survived and being unable to describe their relationship. Was it love? Was it intimacy? Was it friendship or maternal? There were letters she signed as ‘your loving mother’, or she would say, ‘I miss my friend’ – and on one occasion, ‘Hold me tight.’ Those are strong words for a monarch.”
There was no evidence that their relationship was sexual, but there was a romantic element to it. According to Stephen, Victoria liked to be held. “John Brown would lift her down from the horse and put his arms around her, and she liked that very much.
“Anyway, she always liked sex. It was just the children she couldn’t stand.”
For all that Abdul was devoted to her, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t a chancer as well.
“What appealed to him was the intellectual stimulation they shared,” says Ali. “But there was a manipulative side to him too and I still believe he was an opportunist, though I think it was called for to be an opportunist in a world that was not yours, in a country that was not yours. You’re going to have to climb up the ladder with constant obstacles and people against you, and it requires a lot of balls to do that. You have to be a bit street-smart.”
The film was shot in India and the UK. Windsor and Balmoral were recreated at Greenwich, Belvoir Castle and Knebworth, but the biggest coup occurred when the film-makers were granted permission to film at Osborne House, which has never happened before.
This was the Queen’s seaside holiday home on the Isle of Wight, which added a whole new dimension to the film. The actors were elated to be there.
“It was glorious to be sitting at a desk and looking out of a window at the same view Victoria would have seen 100 years ago,” recalls Judi.
“Walking down those corridors and glancing about, you think, well, the paint might have changed, but it was still really exciting.”
Paul Higgins, who plays the Queen’s doctor, Sir James Reid, was the only cast member with a build slight enough to wear real Victorian clothing. He says he relished strolling to the set from his hotel every day, taking the old chain ferry and striding up the hill to the unit base in the grounds of Osborne House.
“I always walked to the house in Victorian clothes, much like he would have worn, over the lawns that he would have walked over as he chatted to the gardeners – he was very interested in gardening. It was such a great way to get into character.”
Alan MacDonald, who worked with Stephen on The Queen, was the production designer.
One of Alan’s favourite moments was during an outdoor tea-party scene in Scotland (filmed in a glen where some of The Queen was also shot), in which Queen Victoria and senior members of her household were having a miserable formal picnic at a table buffeted by the wind. A car pulled up during the filming, the door opened and a high-heeled boot poked out belonging to Eddie Izzard.
He wasn’t required on set that day, but the actor likes to be where the action is.
“Film is my first love and it was one of the first scenes we shot,” says Eddie. “I just wanted to be there – so I drove myself up.” It was a cold, windy day and he remembers lying down in the heather to keep warm.
The stand-up comedian and actor looks like Bertie, who he plays in the film. It was the film’s casting director who suggested him for the role, so Stephen went to watch him do stand-up.
“My character’s interesting – he’s very damaged by his upbringing and his mother blamed him for the death of Albert,” says Eddie. “But he was the only one who could tell her off, really.”
Bertie was one of Abdul’s chief detractors. “Victoria was on her way out,” tells Eddie. “She’s eating herself to death – she’s going to go in the next couple of years and the throne will be Bertie’s. Then suddenly, she gets a whole new lease of life – she’s got something to live for. So you can see that Bertie would be pissed off.”
Eddie gained 12kg to play the part, and was given a beard and a cane. He relished working
‘She was proprietorial with him; he kind of belonged to her – I’m sure that just having someone to relax with must have been wonderful’
with Stephen and was already a friend of Judi’s, who often goes to see his stand-up shows. Accordingly, he arranged a show to take place in the Isle of Wight during filming, to entertain all the other actors and raise money for charity.
Judi was in attendance and it was if the Queen herself had arrived, says Alan. “She’s perceived as regal, but she’s so warm, open, amusing and irreverent.”
Dr Reid was a key character. He saw the Queen several times a day and became a trusted companion.
“He was an exceptional doctor,” says Paul. Unlike some of her other physicians, he kept up to date. Victoria gave him time off to travel to London and visit hospitals, and keep in touch with technology and learning.
“She came to rely on him and trust him, except when he told
her not to eat so much and so quickly. She had a gargantuan appetite.” (In one scene, Judi had to munch her way through 27 boiled eggs. Everyone was very impressed by this.)
Queen Victoria died in Dr Reid’s arms on January 22, 1901, at Osborne House. She was 81.
“She was a monster, but she was also rather brilliant,” says Stephen. “I admire her.”
After her death, Abdul was allowed to spend a moment alone with the Queen as she lay in her coffin. Then, on the orders of the King, came the raid on his house and the destruction of the Queen’s letters. He returned to India and the land Victoria had given him in Agra, a wealthy man. It’s said he spent his last days sitting by the statue of Queen Victoria and watching the sun set over the Taj Mahal.