Victoria series two: ITV drama returns on Sunday

Victoria series two: Will Lord Melbourne return?

11 October

ITV is bringing back its historical drama Victoria for a second series, but will there be a place for Rufus Sewell's Lord Melbourne?

The first run earned both critical approval and high ratings, with an average of 7.7 million viewers making it the most popular ITV drama of the year so far. Renewing the show was an easy decision for the broadcaster.The second run, which will see the return of Jenna Coleman in the title role and Tom Hughes as her husband Prince Albert, looks set to broadcast next autumn.

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Screenwriter Daisy Goodwin teased the central themes in a statement: "Even though she reigned in the 19th century, Victoria is a heroine for our times. In the next series she faces the very modern dilemma of how to juggle children with her husband and her job. As Victoria will discover, it's hard to be a wife, a mother and ruler of the most powerful nation on earth."

Executive producer Damian Timmer said: "The next few years of Victoria's reign are packed full of extraordinary real life events, with constitutional crises, scandals at court and personal challenges aplenty for the Queen and Prince Albert."

As the first series only covers the first three years of Victoria's reign, the series could last even longer if the "appetite" remains strong, Coleman told Digital Spy.

"We end the series with the first birth and that's the first of nine children to come," she said. "It's a story waiting to be told. We've not even got to the Great Exhibition; there's a lot to cover."

But the question on many fans' minds is whether Sewell's smouldering Lord Melbourne will be making a reappearance. During the first series, one thing became clear, says Huw Fullerton in RadioTimes - people were keen for Victoria to get together with her prime minister Lord Melbourne rather than Prince Albert, "history be damned".

Coleman also expressed enthusiasm for Sewell's Melbourne, saying: "I loved working with Rufus; I absolutely adored it. I think he's an amazing actor. And I found their relationship so, so charming."

The actor, however, believes many viewers have also "fallen in love" with Albert and are now "torn between the two". Albert and Melbourne "cannot coexist together, and it's not how history went," she added. Melbourne stopped being PM and after that he aged very quickly.

"It's all rather sad actually," said Coleman, adding there was still a lot to explore in the turbulent relationship between Victoria and Albert.

Which is a shame, says Gerard O'Donovan in the Daily Telegraph, because everything seems to have been bogged down since Albert turned up. That's mainly because of "the sizzling screen chemistry" Sewell and Coleman generated in the first five episodes.

"Torpid Teuton" Albert simply couldn't compete with what had gone before, he adds: "As a result, Victoria peaked too early and ran out of drama" other than the pregnant "queen regnant", which was a royal yawn.

The biggest challenge facing a second series, concludes the critic "will be to extract the flesh-and-blood woman from this still too two-dimensional monarch".

Lord Melbourne and Queen Victoria's relationship: The real story

4 October

Television viewers are seeing Queen Victoria in a new light in ITV's new period drama Victoria.

Indeed, it was the chance to show the lesser-known side of the monarch that attracted lead actress Jenna Coleman, who played Clara Oswald in BBC's Doctor Who.

In particular, the eight-part series reveals Victoria's unusual relationship with Lord Melbourne, her prime minister in the 1830s and 1840s, who is played by Rufus Sewell.

"They had an indefinable relationship: prime minister and Queen, but also father and daughter; some said they were lovers, too," Coleman tells The Guardian. "He spent every night at the palace, and she became totally obsessed with him. The public drew cartoons calling her Mrs Melbourne."

So who was the real Lord Melbourne?

Born in 1779 as William Lamb, Lord Melbourne entered parliament in 1806 as the Whig MP for Leominster. He became prime minister in 1834 and despite having a divided Cabinet, managed to hold together support of allied Whigs, Radicals and Irish MPs.

When an 18-year-old Victoria ascended the throne, Melbourne became her tutor in government and politics, resulting in the development of their very close relationship. The young queen decided to ignore the scandalous affair surrounding his failed marriage and grew reliant on his counsel.

The prime minister would spend four to five hours a day visiting her, sparking rumours they might marry, despite him being 40 years her senior. According to the work of political diarist Charles Greville, the queen's feelings for Melbourne may have been sexual, "though she did not know it". Victoria, however, said she loved him "like a father".

When Melbourne resigned in 1839, the monarch asked Tory leader Sir Robert Peel to form a government. However, he refused when she turned down his request to dismiss the pro-Whig ladies of the bedchamber and Melbourne resumed office.

Melbourne resigned again in August 1841, by which time his role as confidante and sole trustee to Victoria had been taken by her husband, Prince Albert, who is portrayed in the series by Tom Hughes.

Will Lord Melbourne return?

Victoria will draw to a close on Sunday, but for some fans there has been a crucial element missing for weeks: Lord Melbourne departed in episode five last month, when the newly married queen bid farewell to her prime minister in a scene that had a "whiff of Brief Encounter", says the Daily Telegraph.

Viewers were so forlorn they took to Twitter begging for a rewrite of the show – and history – so Victoria and Melbourne could end up together.

"Oh, how we've lacked his gentleness and his close, perhaps too close, relationship with the young queen over the past couple of episodes," says Radio Times.

However, sources tell magazine there is no chance Melbourne will return.

Sewell, meanwhile, has moved from the young Victoria to the Old Vic in London. The actor is currently preparing for a theatrical production of Art, a comic drama about three friends who fall out over a painting. It runs from 10 December to 18 February.