Victoria: A Queen Unbound Review – Darkness Lurks Beneath the Myth of a Model Royal Marriage
Screenwriter Daisy Goodwin has crafted a provocative new theatrical production that challenges the long-held perception of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's marriage as a paragon of royal devotion. Staged at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury, Victoria: A Queen Unbound delves into the private diaries of the monarch to reveal a narrative of coercive control simmering beneath the surface of their celebrated union.
A Fretful Owl in Black Bombazine
The play opens in the gloomy twilight of Victoria's lengthy reign at Windsor Castle. Amanda Boxer portrays the elderly queen as a fretful owl swathed in black bombazine, simultaneously withering, imperious, and prone to self-pity. She famously laments being "a poor widow with no one to support me through all my tribulations." An inveterate diary-keeper, her candid volumes become a source of anxiety for her children, who fear publication after her death.
Memory's Distorting Mirror
Alex Berry's striking stage design features a slanted reflective ceiling that hangs over the action like memory's own distorting mirror. Victoria describes her diaries as "the only place where I could be completely honest." Yet, Goodwin's play provocatively questions this honesty. With Prince Albert known to sneak peeks at her writings, the screenwriter speculates that the couple's most bitter rows and deepest resentments were deliberately omitted from the official record.
From Giddy Waltz to Moulding Control
Jessica Rhodes brings a spirited young Victoria to life, springing from the diary pages in a giddy waltz with her new husband. However, the romance quickly sours. Rowan Polonski's Prince Albert is portrayed as lofty, filled with pique and amour-propre. He systematically attempts to mould her character and suppress her innate joy. He keeps her perpetually pregnant—much to Victoria's dismay, who finds children "invincibly tedious"—and progressively muscles in on her sovereign duties, from drafting speeches to conducting tours of industrial Britain.
Albert's strategy, as his frustrated wife scoffs, was to "make the monarchy so boring that no one was awake enough to start a revolution."Teasing Becomes Taunting, Care Becomes Control
The play meticulously charts the relationship's corrosive descent. Playful teasing morphs into cruel taunting; apparent care transforms into rigid control. Even intimate moments on the sofa erupt into furious spats, such as a heated argument over a Christmas gift where Victoria exclaims, "You gave me a brooch made of teeth, Albert!" Goodwin presents a relationship that is undeniably coercive, yet also suggests a troubling co-dependency, with Victoria's own panic serving to keep her obedient.
A Gothic Fate Imagined
A particularly telling scene finds Victoria reading from Jane Eyre, signalling the gothic fate that Goodwin imagines Albert might have planned for his queen. While the playwright's sympathies clearly lie with Victoria, the production does not entirely dismiss Albert's dedication to public service—a quality now demanded of modern royals, as Goodwin notes, "we don't pay solely to keep them in novels and marrons glacés."
Unsettling a Myth of Stodgy Contentment
Under Sophie Drake's fleet-footed direction, the production adeptly navigates the play's inherent contradictions and occasional repetitions. The result is a compelling and unsettling deconstruction of the myth of stodgy royal contentment. Victoria: A Queen Unbound runs at the Watermill Theatre in Newbury until the 9th of May, offering a bold re-examination of power, partnership, and the secrets hidden within a queen's most private pages.
