Читать книгу The Lost Diaries - Craig Brown, Craig Brown - Страница 64

One of the key things I’ve uncovered during my research is that Victoria became Queen of England at a very young age – and managed to remain Queen all the time until she died! And as a Duchess myself, I feel I have a duty to let the rest of the world into this truly extraordinary secret which has been kept undercover for a century, which is nearly a thousand years.

Instead of a childhood filled with the bestest kind of great big huggy-hugs, the young Victoria had to cope with a starchy, no-can-do, hands-off atmosphere of stuffy, po-faced courtiers telling her do this, don’t do that: no, you can’t get your rocks off with all the hunkiest blokes on the disco floor of Kensington Palace; no, you can’t have a bit of fun going skinny-dipping in the Balmoral pond when there’s a hoity-toity, tutty-tutty garden party in progress; no, you can’t let it all out with a jolly good scream in the middle of a formal dinner party for the President of Snooty-Land, even if you are feeling stressed-up.

But Victoria wasn’t the kind of girl to let a rulebook stand in her way. ‘No way, José!’ she exclaimed, ‘I’m out to have fun!’ One of my totally favorito scenes in my screenplay is when the young Victoria gets a fit of the absolute gigglies when her chewing-gum shoots out of her mouth while she’s talking to the Archbishop of Canterbury, a very senior vicar at that time! And the next minute, she’s standing up to the German Prime Minister Adolf Hitler, telling him straight up that no way is he going to invade England, not while she’s Queen. It’s that kind of period detail – fun and laughter, yes, but also quite a few tears – that’ll make the whole film such an emotional roller-coaster!

SARAH, DUCHESS OF YORK

Henry James died today, in 1916. He was the worst writer in the world. He never went out. He never rolled up his sleeves and put his arm up the backside of a cow. He never slapped a woman about the face to teach her a lesson. He never lived. It is an absence which shows in his ‘novels’.

V.S. NAIPAUL