It’s Royal Spice! Judi is back as Queen Victoria
Judi DENCH will reign again as Queen Victoria, two decades after she first portrayed the monarch in Mrs Brown — a performance which helped her win BAFTA and Golden Globe awards and also attracted a best actress Oscar nomination.
dench will star as the Empress of india in Victoria And Abdul, which is based on the real-life friendship that developed between the widowed queen and Abdul Karim, a handsome young indian who had worked as a ledger clerk at a jail in Agra, in the shadow of the Taj Mahal.
Abdul was sent to London to help present a ceremonial coin during Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887.
The elderly Queen took to him, and soon he was preparing curry for her, and instructing her in urdu and indian affairs, adopting the role of ‘munshi’ (teacher).
The movie, which begins filming in September, reunites Judi with celebrated filmmaker Stephen Frears, who directed her in Mrs Henderson Presents and Philomena. Mrs Brown was released in 1997; and a year later dench won a best supporting actress Oscar for her impeccable portrait of another monarch: Elizabeth i, in Shakespeare in Love.
The actress wondered whether she was done with the Royals, but was smitten anew when she read Lee Hall’s screenplay, based on Shrabani Basu’s book Victoria & Abdul: The True Story Of The Queen’s Closest Confidant.
‘it’s a magnificent role for Judi, and we’re very excited to be working with her,’ said Eric Fellner, of Working Title Films, who is producing the picture with Focus Features and BBC Films.
Fellner noted that although the movie — which will shoot from September on locations in india, Scotland and the isle of Wight — deals with matters that took place more than 120 years ago, ‘it feels extremely modern’.
Fellner told me that it will explore issues of ‘culture, religion and fear’. Hall, who wrote Billy Elliot for screen and stage, is adept at combining social and political matters, and then adding a dash of warmth and humour to the mix.
in a sense, Victoria And Abdul follows on from Mrs Brown, which focused on the friendship between Queen Victoria and John Brown, her Highland ghillie. However, reading through Ms Basu’s tome, it would appear that Victoria had a more intense relationship with Abdul. Her letters to him were signed ‘your loving mother’ and ‘your closest friend’.
Hall’s screenplay, developed with film-maker and producer Beeban Kidron, will also look at the envy the Queen’s friendship with Abdul engendered in the various Royal households, from Buckingham Palace to Balmoral, Windsor Castle to Osborne House on the isle of Wight. Victoria’s family and courtiers were jealous that the Queen held Abdul — the face of a continent she was forbidden to visit, for political and security reasons — in such obvious high esteem. Most important of all, though, was the fact that he didn’t fuss and fawn over her, in the oleaginous manner of most members of her court. Her great-great-granddaughter, our present monarch, has never admitted to seeing Helen Mirren’s 2006 portrayal of her in The Queen ( another of Frears’ films) — though i have heard rumours to the contrary. But Victoria And Abdul sounds perfect viewing for a queen.