It was a real treat to spend a morning filming at Blenheim Palace, the setting of films like Young Victoria, for The Book Show Royal Special. The film aired just before the Diamond Jubilee celebrations, on 31 May 3012 (and is still, at the time of writing, available on Sky On Demand).
I was giving my take on representations of the royalty on screen and page. How have films and novels shaped our ideas of the royalty? If, as I suspect, quite a lot, do they have a responsibility to be accurate? Does it matter if they’re not?
An illustrious panel, made up of historians Andrew Roberts, Kate Williams and Andrew Marr, along with The Book Show host Mariella Frostrup, went on to discuss these issues in greater depth.
It was particularly nice to discover that the Handel’s grand Zadok the Priest was my musical accompaniment.
