Queen Victoria: Secret Marriage Secret Child; Chief of War; The Gone

“Historian Dr Fern Riddell is extremely invested in this love story, and at times things became a little ‘stagey’, but her enthusiasm made for good television. I approached it warily because some royal documentaries feel like they are ten a penny, the worst just rapid cut-and-paste jobs thrown together to lure in Diana fetishists and suchlike. This one, however, presented an impressive body of evidence.”
Carol Midgley, The Times

“Riddell has, I understand, earned a degree of credibility as a social historian, but here she played the part of a starry-eyed fantasist, reading so much between the lines into the correspondence between Queen Victoria and John Brown that credulity flew out of the Balmoral window long before the closing credits. This isn’t history, it’s clickbait.”
Keith Watson, The Telegraph

“Chief of War is a dense business. The story is so unfamiliar that, even allowing for the battle scenes, it could have done with a little more unpacking. The script rarely moves beyond the ‘perfectly serviceable’ range and too many of the actors have little more to do than scowl and growl (the men) or play the feisty-but-loving beauties that pass for well-rounded female characters these days.”
Lucy Mangan, The Guardian

“If The Gone stuck to a straightforward format of summary justice, it might be entertaining. But it’s a disjointed mess of horror movie, teen drama, noir crime and anti-British preaching about colonialism.”
Christopher Stevens, Daily Mail