Australian TV Plays: The Young Victoria (27 March 1963)

Play based on the stage play Victoria Regina by Laurence Housman. It was sponsored by the International ' Theatre Institute, the drama-wing of-UNESCO, to celebrate World Theatre day. It was shown on the same day in Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide to celebrate the day.

They couldn't find an Australian play? Such was Australian drama 1962-63.

Premise

The courtship of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert shown in four vignettes.

Cast

Lola Brooks as Victoria
Ric Hutton as Albert
Rhod Walker as Ernest, Albert's brother
Jessica Noad as a duchess
Benita Harvey as Lady Muriel
Judith Thompson as Lady Grace
Anne Beecher
Jasmine Greenfield as Lady Jane
Alastair Roberts
Frank Taylor
Vaughan Tracey

Original 1935 Play

There was a ban on personations of Victoria in public theatres in Britain, and the play was first given at the Gate Theatre, London in May 1935. The Gate, being a theatre club, was technically private and therefore exempt from the prohibition.

In 1936 Edward VIII had the ban revoked, and public performances of the play were possible. The first was in 1937 at the Lyric Theatre, London, where Pamela Stanley repeated her performance in the title role seen at the Gate two years earlier. The play ran at the Lyric for 337 performances.

The play was a hit on Broadway with Helen Hayes and Vincent Price.

Other adaptations

The play was adapted for radio in the US in 1952. Listen to it here.

It was adapted for US TV in 1961.

It was done by the BBC on TV in 1947 and radio in 1949. Housman did a BBC series on the queen called Happy and Glorious in 1952.

Production

The production was reduced to four vignettes.

Douglas Smith did the sets. Alan Burke directed. It was made in Sydney.

Alan Burke told Graham Shirley in 2004:

The Lawrence Housman Victoria Regina, they were a series of very short plays, not performed in England because it was still forbidden to represent figures from the Royal Family but it had been done in America and in fact had been done in Australia by Fay Compton before the War. I think there are 20 or 30 of them, small plays, vignette and we chose three, they were chosen before but given to me. They were just three of the very early sequences and one they had not included but I suggested they add, which is a sweet play in which she watches Albert shave. She has never seen a man shave. I thought ‘oh it’s too charming, we’ve got to have it’. So the first one was called Woman Proposes which was her meeting with Albert and his brother and her decision as to which she would marry.

The second was the shaving scene, the third was an assassination attempt on her when she’s out in the carriage and is seen mainly through the eyes of two maids, her Ladies in Waiting inside and her escape. She doesn’t get shot but she shows great bravery. And the fourth is a misunderstanding between her and Albert over the presence of another lady, I’ve forgotten, a Lady in Waiting or something in which she takes umbrage and is very cold to Albert and it ends with a lovely reconciliation which is of course where we wound up.

And Albert at the end sits at the piano and sings Drink to me only with Thine Eyes and she sits on the sofa, a heartbreaking little moment. And in one of the rehearsals I remember it was Rick Hutton and Lola Brooks, Lola being very good indeed and Rick being nice with a faint German accent, it was lovely. And at one rehearsal, no piano of course in the rehearsal, he went over to where it was going to be and struck up and sang Saturday Girl at me which I thought was very nice of him. Anyway that was Young Victoria.

Reception

The Sydney Morning Herald gave the film a mixed review, calling it "mildly entertaining and agreeably presented" but also "these excerpts did not succeed in amounting to a play... it was all rather like a musical comedy without the music".

The Age gave it a mixed review saying Brooks was "adequate" but overshadowed by Hutton, and the reviewer admitted to being distracted by Victoria's bonnet.

Listener In called it "acceptable though not exciting".

Frank Roberts of the Bulletin, hater of Australian writing, gave the production "three cheers". No kidding here's what he said:

THREE cheers for Alan Burke, Douglas Smith, Quentin Hole, Ric Hutton, Lola Brooks, the producer, set designer, costumer and leading actors in ABC Television’s “Victoria Regina,” with further applause for all other participants in this enterprise. Mr Hutton had the weight of the acting and he took the honors, although that is no reflection at all on Miss Brooks. Hutton has been developing rapidly as an actor for television since his small but memorable appearances in the ABC’s serial of Captain Bligh in Australia. This time, for the first time, he was given full scope to prove he has mastered the medium. As Prince Albert he was called on to suggest a Germanic accent, which he did, not only in voice but in the very tones of his laugh, and in a blend of stiff-necked correctness, fond ness for his wife, and humanity towards all. Miss Lola Brooks surprised me very pleasantly as Victoria changing from the last stages of girlhood to the young wife, and the young queen beginning to feel her responsibilities, her womanhood, and her power.