An intimate look at the Queen

Our Queen at 90 caps off a celebration of the British monarchy

Debashine Thangevelo

FOR the past few weeks, ITV Choice had a smorgasbord of content in celebration of Her Royal Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s 90th birthday.

With the end of “The Royal Season” almost upon us, with Our Queen at 90 airing tomorrow followed by The Queen’s 90th Birthday Celebration on Saturday, it’s time to take a closer look at the former special, which involved a lot of preplanning by the channel.

The two-hour programme offers a more intimate look at Her Majesty and other members of the royal family a few months prior to the festivities. It also looks at individual contributions from many key figures in her life.

Ashley Gething (director and producer) and Robert Hardman (writer and co-producer) shed some light on the making of the special.

“We started work on the programme in 2014 and began filming in May last year,” says Gething. “We continued filming until February.”

On gaining access to the queen, Gething reveals: “It was a mix of public engagements, official engagements and private moments, too. We also filmed engagements involving other members of the royal family.”

Our Queen at 90 was filmed at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Balmoral, Sandring-ham, Clarence House and Kensington Palace.

As for what threw their perceptions of the queen out of kilter, Gething admits: “Filming the queen getting an overnight train at 11pm after a long day of engagements was pretty unexpected. And it was really interesting to meet members of the royal family who may not be so involved in public life, but who are as close to the queen as anyone.”

Hardman adds: “What surprised me was the way in which the queen’s working life has hardly changed over so many years. There might have been the odd tweak to the schedule in recent years (a little more time spent at Windsor rather than London, for example) but the queen’s approach to the job is the same today as it was when she was celebrating her 80th or 70th birthdays – and those before that.”

Now getting an audience with all the members of the royal family is a coup. On who was the most candid to the most guarded, Gething reveals: “Everyone was very relaxed and open. The only time when people were guarded was when we asked them what they would be giving the queen for her birthday. They all want to give her a surprise!

“Filming them is no different to filming any major public figure – except in terms of dress. It’s an unspoken rule that you try to look smart if you are filming the queen. For the most part, we have tried to be as unobtrusive as possible. Since we have no presenter and this is an observational documentary, our philosophy has been to keep a low profile.”

Given the long duration of the shoot, they managed to accumulate quite a bit of archived footage like a home movie of the queen in her heyday as a princess in Malta, where Prince Philip was stationed while in the Royal Navy.

Gething notes: “People are going to see the queen has a great sense of humour. She comes across as the hands-on captain of the royal team and certainly appears to love her job.”

On how this special differs from a film made in 2013, Hardman explains: “With Our Queen, we were lucky to have a ringside seat during the queen’s diamond jubilee year. Our Queen at 90 has been made by the same production company and has captured some equally memorable moments. But the main difference has been the variety of royal voices – almost a dozen of them. There’s never been a royal documentary with so many contributions from so many members.”

Meanwhile, Saturday’s two-hour spectacle, which is hosted by Ant and Dec at Windsor Castle, features an impressive line-up of celebrities: from Gary Barlow, Dame Shirley Bassey, Katherine Jenkins, Kylie Minogue, Jess Glynne, Andrea Bocelli, Alfie Boe, James Blunt to Beverly Knight. That’s not forgetting the acting personalities, from Jim Carter (Downton Abbey), Damian Lewis (Homeland, Billions), Dame Helen Mirren (The Queen) to Jennifer Saunders (Absolutely Fabulous).

And it proves to be a grand spectacular befitting the queen, of course!

Our Queen at 90 airs on ITV Choice (DStv channel 123) tomorrow at 8pm.