Elizabeth R

Roadshow Home Entertainment / 3 disc set

cast
Glenda Jackson, Robert Hardy, Ronald Hines, Daphne Slater, Bernard Hepton, Robin Ellis

Without doubt Elizabeth R is one of the crowning glories of British Television, made in 1971 and given a huge budget Elizabeth R followed hard on the heels of The Six Wives of Henry VIII and was equally as successful.

Glenda Jackson, who at the time was one of our top actors, was willing to give her all for the part, going to such lengths as shaving her forehead and spending hours in the make up chair as she portrayed the first Queen Elizabeth from an unsure 15 year old to a seen it all 70 year old.

Not so much a series but more a collection of 6 feature length plays, each portraying a different part of the Queen’s life, theres a fantastic supporting cast that includes the likes of Robert Hardy as Robert Dudley (one of the key figures in the Elizabeth’s life, and although she was known as the virgin queen there is a lot of speculation that she enjoyed more than a friendship with Duley), Bernard Hepton as Thomas Cranmer, Ronald Hines as William Cecil, a young Robin Ellis as the Earl of Wessex, Peter Egan as the Earl of Southampton as well as such other well known faces as Angela Thorne, Michael Wiliams, Leonard Sachs and Vivien Pickles.

This 3 disc set from Roadshow, despite not containing any extras, is a must have, a brilliant document from a time when British TV was still willing to take risks and produce brilliant material.