Victoria and Abdul

We knew that we'd need to screen this film even before it was released and the reviews were in: the combination of Judi Dench and period drama meant that we were bound to get a good audience.

I'd seen the film at the cinema and enjoyed it: it was genuinely good but did not have the story or impact of the same team's Philomena. It was a good evening and, as they say, a good time was had by all.

Here are my notes:


Victoria and Abdul

UK 2017          111 minutes

Director:          Stephen Frears

Starring:            Judi Dench, Ali Fazal, Tim Piggott-Smith, Eddie Izzard and Adeel Akhtar

Awards and Nominations

• Nominated for two Oscars (Makeup and Hairstyling, and Costume Design)
• Nominated for Best Actress - Musical or Comedy (Judi Dench) at the Golden Globes
• A further two wins and 10 nominations

“Victoria & Abdul is worth seeing for Dench's magisterial performance and for Frears's light but sure directorial touch. Just don't mistake it for actual history.”

Christopher Orr

Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal) travels from India to participate in Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee. When he meets the Queen (Judi Dench) they strike up an unlikely alliance. As their friendship develops the Prince of Wales (Eddie Izzard), Sir Henry Ponsonby (Tim Piggott-Smith) and members of her household do their best to destroy it.

It is possible to see the film as an unofficial sequel to Mrs Brown (1997) in which Dench’s portrayal of the widowed Queen Victoria won her an Oscar nomination for Best Actress and launched her Hollywood career. The main characters of the film were real people, but the opening credits (“based on true events… mostly”) confirm that what follows is a historical fantasy.

The subject of the film is quintessentially English, and the production involves a creative team that developed their careers at the BBC before moving into cinema where they have been involved in a significant number of the best British films over the past few decades while subsequently garnering an international reputation for their work in Hollywood. The screenplay is by Lee Hall whose early work included plays for BBC Radio before making his name with Billy Elliot (2000) and later writing the screenplay for Stephen Spielberg’s War Horse (2011). Stephen Frears’s early TV work included A Day Out (1972), Alan Bennett’s debut play for TV, and My Beautiful Laundrette (1985), made for TV but released cinematically, before he moved to Hollywood where his films included Dangerous Liaisons (1988), The Grifters (1990) and High Fidelity (2000).

Meanwhile Judi Dench followed an illustrious stage career with a numerous TV roles with the BBC before being cast as Queen Victoria in Mrs Brown. She first worked with Stephen Frears in the TV movie Saigon - Year of the Cat (1983) and subsequently starred in his films of Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) and the Oscar nominated Philomena (2015). Since completing this film she has also starred in Murder on the Orient Express (2017) and has recently completed filming Red Joan, with Trevor Nunn as director.

Here's a link to the trailer: