On December 21, 1963, BBC listeners settled in for My Dearest Angel, R. F. Delderfield’s portrait of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert—an 81-minute drama broadcast as part of The Sunday Play.
But beneath the monarchy, ceremony and history is something much more intimate: a marriage.
In this episode of The Common Room, we return to Delderfield’s play and ask what happens when Victoria the Queen becomes Victoria the wife, and Albert the Prince Consort becomes simply Albert the husband.
How much of their relationship is history, and how much is Delderfield’s dramatic imagination? Why does the story work so beautifully without pictures? What did Delderfield understand about marriage, duty, companionship and the ordinary life hidden behind public greatness?
And there is another fascinating question. In 1963, the BBC could give its audience an 80-minute historical drama and expect people simply to listen.
Have we lost something along with that kind of broadcasting?
Pull up a chair.
The kettle is on, the play has just finished, and the conversation is beginning in The Common Room at Chesterton Radio—the little station on Commercial Street in Atchison, Kansas.
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