Resplendent in all their finery, it was a very posh turnout for the premiere of **The Young Victoria **last night in Leicester Square. A host of British film royalty worked their way down the imperial purple carpet, as star of the film Emily Blunt majestically talked to her subjects, shimmering in diamonds and a full length silver-embroidered Vivienne Westwood gown worthy of Victoria herself.
Blunt plays the titular monarch with the amiable Rupert Friend as her husband-to-be Albert as we take a look at the early years of the longest ruling monarch in British history - previously unchartered territory in films about the life of Victoria. And it was all the brainchild of Duchess Of York, Sarah ‘Fergie’ Ferguson, who graced the premiere with her daughters, the Princesses Beatrice (who has a tiny cameo in the film) and Eugenie.
Also in attendance was Jim Broadbent - who plays Victoria’s uncle, King William, who leaves Victoria as his successor. He told us: “It’s great to play a King. You get to wear the best costumes, you get to be the centre of attention, you get an awful lot of respect. And that’s what every actor needs. It was a great script, I get to play drunk and I get to play angry."
He also told us about his next film, Perrier’s Bounty: "It's set in a gangster world in Ireland. This young couple are on the run from the gangsters and unfortunately the dad has to go along with them. So it’s a sort of chase-caper-comedy. It’s great; it couldn’t be further from this film. One grubby suit all the way through, whereas in this one I wear frills and velvet and lace!"
Along for the ride was Bill Nighy, up next in the '60s Richard Curtis movie The Boat That Rocked, who told us about his upcoming film co-starring the beautiful Blunt: “It’s called Wild Target. I play - hopefully for comic effect - a sad middle-aged hit man, who’s never had a girlfriend. And everything is proceeding along nicely, until he is required to kill Emily and he can’t pull the trigger. He doesn’t understand why and it takes him the whole movie to figure it out: the reason is that she’s too beautiful to kill. I dunno why they cast Emily!”
Another Brit veteran popped in to say hello, in the form of Knight of the Realm Sir Ben Kingsley, who told us: "I love England - that's why I'm here!"
Sir Ben told us what on earth made him pull out of the upcoming action-extravaganza that is shaping up to be** The Expendables**: "I think it was a terrifically difficult scheduling problem, which often happens with me, and dates are always shifting and moving around. I was never actually officially offered it, but there was a lot of rumours flying around which I started to believe in, would you believe! I’m sure I will catch up with that wonderful team - I do like Sylvester very much, so I’m sure we’ll catch up."
And Rupert Friend let us in on a little secret too. If he had to play another prince, out of the following - Prince Caspian, Prince Charming and The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, he would pick: "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince. But I think I’d have to take my shoes off….”
And then finally the queen of the evening arrived, giving the event the Blunt royal seal of approval - but wondering whether the Windsors would do the same: "I hope that they see this as a film that doesn’t demonise the royal family, because I think there have been a lot that have scrutinized them in a way. This is a more intimate portrait, which I hope they’ll like."
All hail Queen Emily!