Competition: Win Victoria season 2 on DVD!

The second season of the acclaimed drama about Britain’s legendary monarch, Victoria, is now available to buy on Blu-Ray and DVD.

Jenna Coleman stars as the titular queen in a modern-day retelling of the life of Britain’s second longest serving British monarch. The first season saw Victoria’s ascension to power aged eighteen years old, her flirtations with Prime Minister Lord Melbourne (Rufus Sewell), marriage to Prince Albert (Tom Hughes) and rocky relationship with government.

In season two, we follow the young queen as she balances her personal life as a mother and wife with her work resolving constitutional crises, court scandals and dealing with an international crisis in the Irish Potato Famine.

To celebrate the release of Victoria season two on DVD, we’re offering TVGuide.co.uk users the chance to win one of three DVD boxsets!

For your chance to win, all you have to do is answer the simple question below correctly and leave the email address at which you would like to be contacted.

(If you can’t see the above form, please click here).

This competition closes on November 28 and is only open to UK applicants. Please see full Terms and Conditions here.

Victoria season 2: The real life story behind Queen Victoria’s fashion statements

Until 2016, the public image of Queen Victoria had long been that of a stiff, monotone, eternally old woman. That was, of course, until the colourful and vivacious depiction of the monarch in her younger years, starring Jenna Coleman, arrived on ITV.

The series Victoria has taken great strides in changing the public perception of Britain’s second-longest reigning monarch, especially in highlighting her genuine interest in fashion.

To celebrate the release of Victoria‘s second season on Blu-Ray and DVD this Monday, November 13, we went behind the scenes at her former home of Kensington Palace to learn more about the real Victoria’s relationship with clothing – and how that impacted all those around her.

The first thing we learn is Victoria was very aware of her own public image.

“She developed very quickly a sophisticated approach to her public image,” says Kensington Palace Senior Curator and Victoria expert Deirdre Murphy. “She wore very carefully designed garments ripe with symbolism.”

“She treated her public appearance almost like tableaux, considering the backdrop she was standing in front of and dressing her family and friends to coordinate with her.”

While growing up and as head of the royal family, Victoria’s clothing was constantly under scrutiny from onlookers and the blossoming media industry. It was something the Queen was enormously aware of and used to the advantage of her people.

“For public events, she always wore British,” says Murphy. The reason was to promote British manufacturing in the face of a decline in the British silk weaving industry in Spitalfields. During the nineteenth century the British silk weaving industry was struggling, and Victoria’s solution was to promote it through her fashion choices.

“She knew other people watched her clothes. She read the newspapers, which included descriptions of what she wore at every public event. She was also very aware of this public expectation that she should wear clothes manufactured in Britain.”

Victoria famously demonstrated this in style on February the 10th, 1840 – the day of her wedding to Prince Albert. Like with Princess Elizabeth a century later, the subject of what the young royal would wear to her wedding day was much discussed in the national press. Queen Victoria ultimately chose to endorse British industry by wearing a dress made of British-made silk and lace.

It wasn’t only at home that Queen Victoria’s style impressed. The Queen picked up many compliments for her choice of attire while travelling, often choosing clothing that used symbols local to the country she was visiting. On her many trips to Scotland with Albert, one of which is depicted in the second season of the series, Victoria adorned herself with Scottish tartan.

“It’s clear from how frequently she wore tartan dresses and accessories this wasn’t clearly a matter of preference,” Murphy said. “She was conveying a diplomatic message here, using dress to relate to local people and using clothing as a communication tool in a way that – probably from today – seems quite modern for the 19th century.”

While visiting Canada, she wore maple leaves. In Ireland, her clothing included shamrocks. Wherever Victoria went, she localised her look to her audience.

“Victoria understood the potential of connecting with people through dress. While she may not have had the Instagram feeds that people have now, the Queen was clearly aware of how her clothing was going to be expressed in the press.”

Victoria to get a second series on ITV

ITV’s period drama hit Victoria has been picked up for a second series.

The Jenna Coleman-fronted series has scored huge ratings for the channel since its premiere last month, consistently beating out the BBC’s popular Poldark series.

According to the Sun, ITV execs have secured more episodes of the show in response to its success and are even daring to hope it may emulate the success of Downton Abbey for the channel.

A source said: “It is going to come back. They recommissioned it a while ago. It has increased its ratings lead over Poldark every week and it is a genuine hit. They’re hoping it will be very popular in the US who love the Royal Family and lapped up Downton Abbey.”

Victoria stars Jenna Coleman as the titular Queen of England, a bold and charismatic ruler who knew her own mind. Rufus Sewell plays her Prime Minister and one-time crush, Lord Melbourne, while Tom Hughes portrays her star-crossed lover and husband Prince Albert in the series.

The news comes after writer Daisy Goodman teased steamy scenes in store for Victoria.

Goodman told the Daily Express: “Well it depends what you mean by steamy, we’ve got a sauna scene, haven’t we?”

REVIEW: ITV’s Victoria is an eye-opener, but doesn’t fulfil lofty ambitions

Queen Victoria is known as one of Britain’s most famous monarchs, who governed the country and its colonies through one of the most revolutionary periods in history.

She is not known for her troubled early years in power, where she struggled to maintain control of a court that did not respect her. Nor is she known for a series of scandals that befell her early reign, or her passionate and youthful infatuation with the Whig Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne.

ITV’s latest drama, simply named ‘Victoria‘, seeks to change the public perception of the so-called “grandmother of Europe” from one considered an old, uninteresting figure to a strong, resilient woman who knew her own mind like the back of her hand.

The new drama is based primarily on the words of Queen Victoria herself, for the monarch was a dedicated diarist. In the first of eight episodes, an 18-year-old Alexandrina Victoria is declared the Queen. She begins taking control of her destiny right from the off. She chooses the name Queen Victoria against the advice of her advisors, selects the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne as a confidante despite his very public personal life, and involves herself in what she believes is a scandal within her very household.

The finished product is entertaining viewing, with much of what is enjoyable about the episode revolving around the character of the young but determined new Queen. Jenna Coleman, although twelve years older and a couple of inches taller than the real Victoria, looks fittingly small and youthful in the role. The reason for this is a combination of excellent makeup and Coleman’s uncanny ability to beautifully encapsulate teenage naivety and fearlessness.

If the series continues to alert people to the true nature of Queen Victoria, then making it seems a worthwhile endeavour. However, Victoria was also vulnerable to the trappings of a teenage mind, displayed all-too-clearly by her love for parties and growing crush on Prime Minister Lord Melbourne.

Victoria’s interest in Melbourne is as obvious and embarrassing as a young girl entranced by Edward Cullen of the Twilight saga. She confides in him her secrets, goes riding with him every day and even refers to him with a special nickname – ‘Lord M’. Rufus Sewell does a wonderful job with the character, from the easy charm which captivates Victoria to a tortured scene where he mourns the death of his son.

What’s made painfully clear is Victoria is a girl, and restrained by her gender and size. Despite her status and ferocity, she finds it difficult to get those around her to take her seriously. This is illustrated excellently by a scene in which Victoria makes her first address as Queen. She is small, young girl surrounded by a bowing mass of middle-aged greying white men.

A lavish ITV production with well-dressed elites and a soap opera-style story is always going to get comparisons to Downton Abbey, and it’s there that Victoria falters. There is less fiction in Victoria, so far. She really did accuse her mother’s handmaiden of carrying an illegitimate baby and attempt to prove it, to horrible results. The problem with Victoria is it seems to plod along, following the chronological truth of Victoria’s ascendancy rather than structuring the first episode around any particular theme.

It is has a good basis in history, but perhaps spectacular television has ruined me in that I want more from my drama. I don’t want a drama that is playing it safe. I want shock, I want well-thought-out connections and I want some of the fierceness of Victoria’s personality to penetrate the storytelling.