[caption id="DameGoodheartRoyalJubileesandRareThingsintheGallery_img1" align="aligncenter" width="925"]
DVD
Happy and Glorious: The Royal Wedding and the Coronation, The Royal Collection, Yesteryear, Leatherhead, Surrey, £9.99.
THE RECENT WELL-DESERVED celebrations of the diamond wedding anniversary of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh have stirred up memories in those long-lived enough to recall the magnificent state occasions of Her Majesty’s wedding to her dashing Prince Philip in 1947 and her jubilant imperial coronation in 1953.
Now, the Royal Collection of monarchical memorabilia has available Happy and Glorious, the stories of both regal events (www.happyandglorious.co.uk). For those who remember them, here is a chance to relive the royal wedding and coronation. For those who do not, here is a chance to see the historic events just as average British folk (and the rest of the world) saw it.
Edited together from newsreels of the time, the video forms a seamless narrative of the years leading up to the royal wedding, preparations for the big event, the making of her wedding dress, wedding presents at St. James’s Palace and the huge wedding day itself.
Television was just appearing popularly in 1953, and Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation was the first major event captured and broadcast by the innovative medium. This original documentary covers all the splendor of the day and the symbols and ceremonies of the coronation itself—in magnificent black and white, of course.
The playtime is not long for a video, but, then, newsreels were the original sound bites. These are charming and irreplaceable historic images. This would make a great gift for someone who loves and admires the Queen.
Book
Twilight of Splendor: The Court of Queen Victoria During Her Diamond Jubilee Year by Gregory King, John Wiley & Sons, Hoboken, N.J., 337 pages, hardcover, &doller;30.
WHEN QUEEN VICTORIA DIED in January 1901, few of her subjects could remember another monarch sitting on the British throne. She gave her name to an age and reigned over an empire that stretched across the globe. In the decades since Victoria’s accession in 1837, Great Britain had seen railroads shrink the island and the arrival of telephones and electricity. The nation’s standard of living had risen at a heretofore-unimaginable rate. And Britannia did indeed rule the oceans of the world.
If there was a moment in time when the British Empire and its imperial capital celebrated itself, it was the Diamond Jubilee of Her Most Britannic Majesty Queen Victoria. After the commemorative year of 1897, Victoria’s health declined steadily and she disappeared forever from public view. Perhaps her fading into the pages of history melancholically presaged that sunset on the British Empire that all too soon followed in the decades to come.
In 1897, however, the country and its provinces had a reason to celebrate. The previous year, Victoria had surpassed her grandfather, King George III, as the longest reigning English monarch. Her 60th year on the throne became an occasion for the nation to honor and recognize their beloved Queen. As much as her person, however, the Diamond Jubilee celebrated what Victoria personified—the glory of the Empire itself.
Twilight of Splendor is the story of Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee year. This is Victoria’s story, up close and personal. Gregory King has done a tremendous job of researching and synthesizing the details of how the Queen lived and moved through the course of the year. He provides a fine amount of historic context without drifting off the focus on the events and lifestyle of Victoria and her court.
If Victoria was in her twilight, it is the splendor of her court and of the Jubilee occasions that shines through the year. Before the events of the Jubilee, Victoria had lived for 40 years in a widowhood of semi-seclusion from the public life she had enjoyed with her much-adored Albert. Yet she maintained a regal court and lifestyle that seems today almost embarrassingly opulent. The drawing rooms and levees, state dinners and balls, are described in just the right detail, leaving a sound mind awestruck at the sheer expense.
Autumn at Balmoral, Christmas at Osborne House, spring in Windsor, and Buckingham Palace in the summer: It was a peripatetic year, and getting the court around was no simple task. When the Queen vacationed at Easter for eight weeks in the south of France, she took a 70-room wing of what would be today a five-star hotel. As for Victoria’s personal apartments, her own furniture, fixtures and “stuff” was all crated up and shipped to Nice, so she could be surrounded by her own things. What would have been the tab for the Queen’s tea on a Mediterranean terrace?
Remarkably, it is hard to come away from the book begrudging Victoria the sheer magnificence with which she was surrounded. Victoria was, and she knew it, the proud symbol and figurehead of a very self-confident and self-congratulatory Empire. That it would fall apart in fewer years than it took to build, few would have foretold at the time.
Her subjects basked in the glory of their monarch and of her court. It is fun to bask with them. While a book like this is certainly not everyone’s quart of caviar, this is a wonderful read.
Theater
Snow White; a Traditional British Panto, The British Players, Kensington, Md.
WASHINGTON, D.C.’S BRITISH PLAYERS have done it again. As with their acclaimed annual Music Hall, the British Players are one of the few American groups to do proper British pantomime. This year’s British Players’ production of Snow White proved a rollicking tour de force, bringing credit to themselves and honor to the theatrical genre.
[caption id="DameGoodheartRoyalJubileesandRareThingsintheGallery_img2" align="aligncenter" width="672"]
The general story of Snow White (or Princess Millie, as she is more formally known), you no doubt remember. The princess was china-doll lovely, as was the principal boy, Prince Michael of Tyrolia. As happens so often in a pantomime version of the tale, however, the real star of the show is the Dame.
In this case, Dame Goodheart, the royal housekeeper, played stunningly by panto-veteran Malcolm Edwards, flounced on stage with bountiful bosom bouncing the first time to ask the front row of kids, “Do you know who I am?” When one smart 6-year-old shouted out “the Queen!” the evening was on.
The show was staged by an experienced troupe who knew what they were doing. All the gags, gimmicks and audience interaction that make the panto a unique delight for all ages were present with colorful enthusiasm; the songs were ripped from everywhere and rendered with verve. The costuming was dazzling; Dame Goodheart herself doubled as a quick-change artist. Best of all, the theater and staging were intimate enough so that everyone really could feel part of the show.
Oh yes, and in the end Queen Maligna, after being hissed at mercilessly all evening, got carted away in disgrace, and Snow White and Prince Michael presumably lived happily ever after following a grand finale wedding. The audience left happily ever after as well.
It is too late, of course, to see this production of Snow White. The British Players performed it to sell-out crowds during the show’s November-December run. By all means, though, if you are in striking distance of the capital area, watch the company’s Web site at www.britishplayers.org for details of this year’s coming Music Hall and Pantomime. They couldn’t do it any better in the West End.
DVD
Monarchy with David Starkey, 2-vol. boxed set, Acorn Media, Silver Spring, Md., 239 minutes, &doller;39.99.
IN THE SECOND SET OF HISTORIAN David Starkey’s epic documentaries on the English monarchy, he takes the story of royal rule from the Restoration of Charles II to Queen Victoria in five colorful episodes.
Collectors who have the first set will certainly want to complete the series with this newest offering released by Acorn Media. Anglophiles and history fans who have missed this excellent production might not want to pass this opportunity casually. Ranging across the countryside and centuries, Starkey unrolls royal history at a brisk pace, accessible to neophytes in the subject and satisfying to those who know the story well. Both of these sets are the rare videos that really will merit watching again and again.
[caption id="DameGoodheartRoyalJubileesandRareThingsintheGallery_img3" align="aligncenter" width="678"]
Exhibition
Amazing Rare Things, The Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace
IF YOU MISSED THIS EXTRAORDINARY exhibition at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, you can catch “Amazing Rare Things” in London this year at The Queen’s Gallery. Selected from collections in the Royal Library in collaboration with noted naturalist Sir David Attenborough, the exhibition brings together the works of four artists and a collector who have shaped our knowledge of the world around us. Leonardo da Vinci, Cassiano dal Pozzo, Alexander Marshal, Maria Sibylla Merian and Mark Catesby are diverse figures who shared a fascination with the beautiful and bizarre in nature.
All lived at a time when new species were being discovered around the world in ever increasing numbers. Many of the plants and animals represented in the exhibition were then barely known in Europe. Today some are commonplace, while others are extinct. The “Amazing Rare Things” show runs through September 28, 2008.
Comments