elizabeth'd out

so the sequel to 1998's 'elizabeth', 'the golden age' will be released in october concentrating on the later years of elizabeth the first's reign and her relationship with sir walter raleigh (the famous seafarer who not only discovered the potato and tobacco, but also found time to design a range of high quality bicycles)

my first reaction on reading about the new movie was, haven't we had enough about good queen bess by now...?

i mean first we had cate and geoffrey in 'elizabeth' - then there was david starkey's four part four hour biography in that partially dramatised, 'characters-staring-portentiously-at-rotating-cameras' approach that his history series tend to go in for - after this simon schama's 'a history of britain' and again david starkey's epic four-year history strand 'monarchy' gave over sizeable chunks of their running time to her reign - followed in even quicker succession by channel four's major drama, 'elizabeth I' which concentrated on her middle to later years with helen mirren playing a maturing queen (the only actress i know who's played both elizabethan monarchs) and then six months later, the bbc's four part drama 'the virgin queen' with ann-marie duff, which covered the whole sweep of her reign, retreading their original 1971 nine hour drama, 'elizabeth r' which starred the right honourable glenda jackson, mp



so many elizabeths crammed into a decade

but now, despite the liberties the film-makers took with historical facts and the chronology of the events in the first movie, i'm rather looking forward to seeing cate (i am become a virgin) blanchett and geoffrey rush reprising their roles - particularly geoff, as i thought his turn as elizabeth's spymaster, walsingham was the best thing about the original

although i have to say that my favourite portrayal of england's most famous historical virgin still remains miranda richardson's queenie in 'blackadder II' and her freudian dreams of being the pastry case of a sausage roll and sitting on top of an enormous pine tree...