Review

Jenna Coleman's Victoria smoulders as Poldark loses edge

Jenna Coleman as Queen Victoria
Jenna Coleman as Queen Victoria Credit: ITV

Two weeks in and the battle for Sunday night supremacy between Victoria (ITV) and Poldark (BBC One) was really hotting up. In Cornwall, dashing Cap’n Ross Poldark was in court, engaged in a fight not only for his life but for the very soul of British justice. Back in civilisation, an entirely different kind of court battle was raging as priggish Prince Albert attempted to steal young Queen Victoria’s heart.

Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark
Aidan Turner as Ross Poldark Credit: BBC

Of the two, Poldark was the more manifestly dramatic. As Ross (Aidan Turner) glowered in Bodmin Gaol, resisting all advice that only grovelling could save his neck, his flame-haired wife Demelza (Eleanor Tomlinson) was flashing her eyes at every man of influence in town (notably the judge – a project doomed to backfire, and badly). Meanwhile, Ross’s arch-rival, George Warleggan (“boo-hiss”), was exerting his influence by bribing everyone in sight to paint Poldark as a flag-waving revolutionary.

 Eleanor Tomlinson as Demelza
 Eleanor Tomlinson as Demelza Credit: BBC

Happily, amid all this highly contrived bleakness, there were moments of levity. Most of these were generated by wannabe MP Unwin Trevaunance (Hugh Skinner) and his comely companion Caroline (Gabriella Wilde), whose tongue now lolls out like a Labrador’s every time hunky physician Dwight Enys (Luke Norris) comes into view. You wouldn’t get odds on those two catching fire further down the line.

Aidan Turner
Aidan Turner Credit: BBC

Similarly, no one on the planet would have taken a bet that Ross Poldark would be found guilty, let alone sentenced to hang. So despite the evidence being stacked higher than a barricade against him, he got off by sticking to his guns and making a fine speech about justice, tradition and the rights of the common man.

“Such eloquence,” gasped his admiring cousin Francis (Kyle Soller) who, incidentally, survived last week’s cliffhanger suicide attempt when his flintlock’s powder failed to catch light (there’s a metaphor there). I must admit, I wasn’t so convinced by Ross’s performance and would have been inclined to send him to the gibbet.

Jenna Coleman
Jenna Coleman Credit: ITV

Victoria had an even tougher battle on its hands when it came to trying to add some suspense to the proceedings. We could all gasp in surprise at the young queen’s (Doctor Who star Jenna Coleman) romantic entanglement with her prime minister, Lord Melbourne (Rufus Sewell), chiefly because it was a complete fiction and, thus, news to everyone.

But if there’s one thing we all know about Queen Victoria, other than her longevity, it is that she was head over heels with her darling Prince Albert. So, how do you eke an hour’s drama moving from the minute they met to the moment the marriage proposal was popped?

Tom Hughes
Tom Hughes Credit: ITV

Painting the prospective consort as an insufferable killjoy was a risky strategy. Albert’s po-faced refusal to laugh at the Queen’s quip about stamp-users licking her face, for instance, was understandable – it’s a joke that must have seemed lame from the first moment it was uttered. There was also a tedious desire, on the part of the programme makers to show, constantly, the contrast of Albert’s priggishness with his forward-thinking concerns for the whole of humanity.

Still, there were some nicely achieved moments of high romance. A scene early on, in which Victoria and Albert’s hands touched during a piano duet all but showered us with sparks it was so electric. And a waltz, in which the world receded as the young royals consumed each other with their eyes, was gloriously done. It’s just a shame that the mood was ruined by Albert ripping his shirt open with a knife in order to place the queen’s corsage next to his heart. This is a scene, I suspect, that will have had most viewers rolling off their sofas in helpless merriment.

Jenna Coleman
Jenna Coleman Credit: ITV

In some ways, there is little to choose between Poldark and Victoria. One may play wild and rugged to the other’s courtly stratagems but, in these episodes at least, both offered much the same Sunday night vision of a dramatic universes dominated by heart-stoppingly handsome heroes who are dark, moody and implacable – and very much not Rob Titchener.

However, Victoria continues to have the edge over its rival (and this was born out by the fact that it beat Poldark in last weekend’s ratings). It is more beautiful and marginally less predictable despite the demands of sticking, at least in outline, to historical fact. Despite all the build-up, Poldark’s big moment in court – like cousin Francis’s gunpowder – certainly fizzled mightily but didn’t quite deliver on the bang.

License this content