The Lost Prince

Rating:
Summary: History with humanity
Review: At first glance, this film might seem rather ordinary, plot coverage of the important events related to the end of the end of the Edwardian era and the Victorian Dynasty in Europe, but it is really about the very human struggles of the English monarchy at the time. The desire of the mentally and physically challenged Prince John to be part of the world his parents George V and Queen Mary have ostracized him from lies at the heart of this film. Around John struggle his nanny, Lalla (Gina McKee), who strives for John's acceptance by his parents; his mother, Queen Mary (Miranda Richardson), who clings to the dignity her own mother was so lacking in; his father George V (Tom Hollander), who feels dwarfed by his position and the demands of loyalty to family and country. It is obvious the film was painstakingly researched, but history is only the backdrop here against which a drama of love, rejection, and loss play out to an inevitable conclusion. This film was touching in a way few historical dramas are and I think the focus on John, who most likely suffered from autism and epilepsy, is the reason. I highly recommend this to anyone with an interest in British history.

Rating:
Summary: A fabulous feast for the eye, as the world changes
Review: Beautifully imagined and visually sumptuous, The Lost Prince is an engaging history lesson that emotionally and passionately recounts the years of a fading era. The series portrays epoch changing, true events from the eyes of the British royal family from 1908-1917. From the death of King Edward VII through to the Great War and the assassination of the Rominovs, The Lost Boy shows a period of immense upheaval where decades old family alliances are shattered, and the geopolitical world is profoundly changed.

Directed by Stephen Poliakoff, the story follows the life, and is told from the perspective of the little-known epileptic (and probably autistic) Johnny, the son of King George V. Johnny witnesses the disintegration of the Victorian dynasty, while around him flows the majesty and tragedy of World War I. At first, Johnny has a small voice and a remote presence, and he is sheltered from the world by his Mother, Queen Mary and his maternal-like governess. Unable to concentrate, and prone to unpredictable outbursts and fits, Johnny is exiled to a country estate, where under the supervision of his governess and teacher, he attends to his flower garden and is forbidden to have contact with anyone. The royal doctors tell the Queen that his brain is malformed and that total isolation is his only hope.

Poliakoff sets a slow pace as the viewer is gradually introduced to the family and their ostentatious lifestyle. The Royals entertain the Rominovs on a state visit, which provides an opportunity for the Russian Royals to practice their English, they have tea in the country with the Prime minister, and there is the greatest pomp and pageantry at the death of King Edward. The family spends their days picnicking and duck shooting, and all the while the mysterious child is hidden from view.

The opulent physical production is used to magically create an intimacy that beautifully captures the subtleties of the era. Through Johnny's eyes we see the grand drawing rooms, the stunning palaces, the ladies' feathered hats, and the kings, dukes and assorted European royals when they come to visit King George and Queen Mary. The cast is of superb quality and stunning depth: Michael Gambon in a small part as Johnny's grandfather, Edward VII, sets a richly royal tone that resonates throughout, while the magnificent Miranda Richardson, as his mother, catches the extreme anxiety of a woman conflicted by her royal duties and her endearing love for her son. Daniel Williams and Matthew Thomas play Johnny with disarming eloquence and the wonderful Gina McKee, who is sadly touching, plays his governess. She loves him dearly, tries so hard with him, and will do anything to protect him and lift him out of his detachment. Johnny also finds support and love in is brother, Georgie (played sensitively by Brock Everitt-Elwick and Rollo Weeks).

Of course there's an inevitable sadness when watching this series: It's the end of a grand era, where Queen Victoria's vision of a Royal Europe populated with her descendents is gradually disintegrating. Overshadowing the historical facts is the humbling transformation of British society from one in which class predominated into one in which it was stripped of all except ceremonial power. Provocative and emotionally charged, The Lost Boy is destined to be a television classic. Mike Leonard October 04.


Rating:
Summary: Pivotal moments in history through the eyes of an innocent
Review: For his latest television film, Stephen Poliakoff has dusted off some skeletons from the Royal Family closet, given them flesh through a well researched, literate script and dressed them, beautifully, in all the finery of late Edwardian era; his real triumph, though, is in breathing life into what could have been mere historical zombies.
"The Lost Prince" tells the tale of the Royals from the time of Edward VII, and the zenith of Britain's Imperial splendour, through to the Gotterdammerung of the First World War and the smashing of the royal houses of Europe on the battlefield. Where Poliakoff's account departs from others is in telling the story largely through the eyes of a child: Prince Johnny, the epileptic, possibly autistic (and thought to be 'imbecile') youngest son of George V and Queen Mary. For Johnny, hidden away in the country where he cannot embarrass his parents, the unfolding of one of the most tumultuous periods in European history is a surreal family melodrama populated by larger-than-life relatives like Czar Niki and Kaiser Willy.
Pretty well abandoned by his parents, Johnny's main contact with the world is through his nurse, Lalla, and brother Georgie---better known as the Duke of Kent, whose death in a 1942 plane crash along with the 'real' Rudolf Hess still has tongues wagging---Poliakoff also lifts the lid on who was really responsible for abandoning the Romanovs to their fate (and it wasn't Lloyd George).
With great performances from the likes of Tom Hollander (as George V), Michael Gambon (as Edward VII), and Miranda Richardson (as Queen Mary)---not to mention the children who bring young Johnny and Georgie to life---splendid cinematography, a suitably bittersweet Elgarian score and an approach to staging the past that gets beyond the cosmetic pleasures of much costume drama, this is a wonderfully satisfying, elegiac piece of work. A perfect piece of historical drama, no less.

Rating:
Summary: The Best Historical Drama As Of Late For The BBC
Review: Masterpiece Theatre on KCET aired this two-part movie only weeks ago. It is a well-made and highly engaging historical movie with strong cast and touching human expression. Gina McKee (of the earlier "Forsyte Saga" series, plays the nanny and nurse to the sickly, epileptic and eternally childish Prince Johnnie, who was kept hidden from public eye during the years before World War I. The Royal Family of England, Queen Mary (played superbly by Miranda Richardson) and King George V, are portrayed with a human touch and do not come off as distant historical figures. The movie is rather long but worth watching. Prince Johnnie is treated as the hero of the movie, as the voice of reason, despite his illness and his position as the weak one. The plot follows historical fact accurately. European monarchy was shaken off its foundation with the outbreak of World War I. King Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary was assasinated by Gavrilo Princip, a radical, and war erupted. Further revolutions in Russia as the Communists take over and slaughter the Romanov family- Czar Nicholas, his wife Alexandra and their daughters including Anastasia. This movie has beautiful locations, cinematography and a great musical score. Other than the original music for the film, excerpts from classical music are presented as Johnnie listens to a phonograph, among the works he hears is Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 finale- the allegro con brio. A great movie. On DVD, there is commentary by the director Stephen Poliakoff and insight on the time period of World War I "The King, The Kaiser and the Czar", a look at the three powers in Europe- the king of England, the German Kaiser Wilhelm and the Czar, who all make appearances within the context of the film.

Rating:
Summary: Heartbreakingly Evocative
Review: Now that I have finally seen both episodes of The Lost Prince I can say confidently that it is one of the best Masterpiece Theater presentations in many years. As the story of Prince John, the youngest child of King George V and Queen Mary of Great Britain, it is heartbreakingly evocative of the tragedy of one child and of the loss of an entire world.

The first episode opens with Prince John at about the age of three or four. He is epileptic and probably autistic, handicaps which no one knew how to deal with effectively at the time and which were especially difficult to handle for a Royal on public display much of the time. His family is fond of him but emotionally distant, and the only real love John receives is from his nurse Lalla and his next older brother Georgie. Most of the time John is kept out of sight, though occasionally he gets to watch Royal occasions like the visit of the Russian Imperial Family to England (among the most beautiful of the scenes in this film, the Grand Duchesses and the Empress being elegant and charming) and the funeral of his grandfather Edward VII. His parents are so bound up with their royal duties and conscious of their dignity that they can't unbend enough to risk being with Johnnie too often. (With Queen Mary we are given an explanation for her apparent unfeelingness when we are shown glimpses of her own difficult and embarrassing childhood as the daughter of a very large and very undignified Princess.) Johnnie's handicaps make him refreshingly natural and spontaneous, which embarrasses his family when, for example, he repeats some unflattering comments he has overheard the Prime Minister make about the Royals. The first episode ends with the outbreak of World War I and Johnnie's removal to the countryside.

In the second episode Johnnie is safely ensconced at a farm near Sandringham with Lalla and a small retinue of servants. He rarely sees his family, who are busier with royal duties than ever. His main source of news and information is Georgie, who is a miserable cadet at the Royal Naval College. Georgie witnesses Britain's conversion to a war footing and the development of chauvinistic super-patriotic anti-German feelings. These lead to the Royal Family coming under attack for its German origins, and to the dynasty's renaming itself the House of Windsor. We also see the fate of the Romanovs after the fall of the Russian monarchy in 1917. Although the British government at first agreed to accept the Romanovs as exiles, rising anti-monarchical sentiment in Britain so alarmed George V that he prevailed on his government to rescind the invitation. This led to the eventual execution of the Romanovs and lifelong remorse by the King.

During these war years Johnnie lived a quiet life, roaming the countryside and planting gardens. His parents saw him rarely and were as distant as ever. Eventually, Lalla prevailed on the King and Queen to hear Johnnie give a recital. One of the happiest parts of The Lost Prince comes when the King and Queen find themselves listening to and enjoying the company of their youngest son, gradually unbending and smiling as he plays the trumpet and kicks a football. Johnnie lived only a short time after the end of World War I, but the King and Queen carried his memory with them for the rest of their lives. By the way, it may be of interest to know that his brother Georgie, to whom Johnnie gave the courage to pursue his own artistic interests, had difficulties of his own in his twenties and thirties with drug addiction and sundry other problems, finally dying in a plane crash in 1942. This Georgie was not King George VI, the father of the present Queen. George VI's original name was Albert (Bertie) and he appears only as an extra in this film.

The Lost Prince is a beautiful production. Extreme royal aficionados will notice a few missteps (the Romanovs may have been Russian Royals, but they didn't have Russian accents the way this film portrayed them. If anything, Nicholas and Alexandra and their children had British accents!) but these are mere fumbles in the delivery of a beautiful and evocative series.

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant.
Review: This film is absolutelty magnificent. The acting is impeccable, and the whole story is very moving. I recommend it to anyone. The young actors in the movie were perfect and made the characters seem real. Someone who really stuck out for me was Rollo Weeks, who plays Prince George in the film...

Rating:
Summary: Still here, in memory...
Review: This is a very touching tale of a lost 'footnote' from history - some histories of the British royal family come with handy genealogy charts, showing the progress of royals through the ages in graphic format. Often, the younger children, the 'also rans' of the royal story, are left off the charts, unless they attained fame some other way, or unless they married well. For those royal children who died in infancy or childhood, history is most unkind - they aren't even in the footnotes or indices. Such is often the case for young Prince John - born with a disability that presented like epilepsy, he was (according to the custom of the time) kept out of the public eye. Being rather low on the pecking order, he likely never would have attracted much attention, but with his disability, in a world that did not quite know how to regard those with disabilities, he was indeed an outcast, however royal.

The teleplay shows an interplay of the private life of Prince John and his caregivers, particularly the deeply devoted servant and nanny, Lalla, and the public life of the royal family, as their lives became increasingly complex and involved in public duties due to the outbreak of the first world war. The private life concentrates both on John and Lalla, as well as John and George, another of the younger royal children, close in age to John. George went through the typical royal upbringing of boarding schools with a military emphasis; he was as out-of-place in that world as John was in the stuffy, rigidly-controlled royal world. The camaraderie between George and John was touchingly portrayed in two different age brackets - one of early childhood (Daniel Williams playing John, and Brock-Everitt-Elwick playing George), and one of early adolescence (Matthew Thomas playing John, and Rollo Weeks playing George). John, with his lack of inhibitions and oversized features (part of his disability) would occasionally make a truthful-if-not-quite-diplomatic statement, sometimes to a visiting royal, sometimes to the Prime Minister or other such dignitary.

John's expression in life was done through art, music, and physical movements and expression. He made paintings that showed a rather unique way of looking at the world, often over-emphasising details (such as crowns). He also cared passionately for his gardens, working for hours at a time among the flowers and other plants. Lalla (lovingly portrayed by Gina McKee) encouraged him, seeing in him more substance that doctors could with their brief examinations, and more than could his own parents, who rarely exhibited affection to John (or each other, or anyone else).

It was a tense time in the world. King George V (Tom Hollander) and his wife, the regal and inflexible Queen Mary (Miranda Richardson) tried desperately to navigate through a world becoming distinctly unfriendly toward royalty; just a generation prior, their family through Victoria's connections reigned in almost every major and many minor countries in Europe, which at that time through colonialism dominated the world; by the end of World War II, few monarchies were left, and those that were had no power or authority of their own. One of the mistakes of the monarchs, brought out in this teleplay, was the assumption that they still had power. In actual fact, they rarely even had influence.

The scenes with the Russian royal family are interesting to note the similarities and differences between the ideas of royalty; the political leaders, too, are portrayed in somewhat flat but interesting characterisations. Yet, as one other commentator has mentioned, the truly outstanding moment of the drama comes near the end, when John gets to give his performance for the family, and causes the family to reflect on their fortunes - after all, they were still there, silly. Unlike the Russian royals, dead from the revolutionaries; unlike the German and Austrian royals, driven from office by the war; unlike countless other royal persons throughout Europe, dead or in exile from the aftermath, the British royal family (with its newly-minted British name) survived intact, if not in power. One does indeed doubt the historicity of John's final performance for the family, but one can hope that it, or something like it, did indeed occur.

The sets, costumes, and music are very well crafted and appropriately selected for this teleplay. This is a programme I shall revisit again and again. Despite all life's troubles, after all, we're still here, silly.


Rating:
Summary: A unique perspective of the last days of Empire
Review: We have seen plenty of treatments of the Edwardian era and World War I, including a number from a child's perspective, but none with the perspective that one will find here. Prince John (1905-1919), sheltered from public view due to a variety of ailments (including epilepsy & possibly a form of autism), drifts through his brief life unaffected and undisturbed by the tumult surrounding him.

One reviewer scored this production for its sloppy editing, as the scenes appear to be jumbled together. There is something to that criticism. If you do not know the period well, you may be confused as to what year it is, not to mention who all of the royal relatives may be. Every now and then, one gets a point of reference (death of Edward VII, assassination of Franz Ferdinand) that will tell you what year it is, but then you find that the scene has abruptly shifted to 2 years later. This was a little disconcerting & may be the result of sloppy editing, but I am inclined to think that this was by design. For a child cut off from world events, where every day consists of the same routine, the years might very well blur together after awhile.

Aside from Prince John, a great deal of the action centered around his older brother, (the future Duke of Kent) Prince George (1902-1942), whose perspective is considerably different than that of his brother. Condemned to be the only smart one in a family of relative dullards, Prince George feels most keenly the inability of his parents to deal effectively with much of anything at all, whether it is John's situation or matters of state. At the film's conclusion, he almost envies his brother for being able to live his life on his own terms, and not give a damn what anyone else thinks.

The performances are first rate. Miranda Richardson is superb as Queen Mary, who clearly is torn between her duties as Queen and her wishes to be more attentive and supportive of her family. Tom Hollander evokes sympathy as the hapless George V, who is all too aware of his limitations as a monarch and father & is considerably frustrated by it. Shining through above all others is Gina McKee, who many may recall from "The Forsyte Saga" (in a role that I personally felt had her horribly miscast). She may not have worked well as Irene Forsyte, but she was most moving as the wholy devoted nanny Lalla, who so cares about John's well-being that she is willing to endure a near-decade of virtual exile. It appears that Lalla is unwilling to admit fully to herself the true nature of John's disabilities, continuing to insist that John is "doing so much better." Her own world ultimately becomes more removed from reality than that of John himself.

This is the ultimate irony of John's life, and we see it throughout the film. He was shielded from public view to protect the royal family from potential embarrassment, but this same seclusion ultimately serves to protect John from his own family & their inadequecies. Though largely forgotten by history, nonetheless he is the one who emerges most unscathed and uncompromised.

Rating:
Summary: The Lost Prince-Television The Way It Should Be
Review: When I first heard about The Lost Prince, I was expecting the sad story about a young boy (albeit a prince of the House of Windsor) who was isolated from his family and the outside world. But what I gained from The Lost Prince, was a well-acted, well-written story from a "so-callled outsider's (Pince John's) point of view about the world of opulence and splendor (Edwardian roylaty) that he was born into,but never could fully participate in. Prince John, as well as Prince Georgie and Lalla serve as witnesses to this world and its disintegration with World War I .
Captivating and inspirational, The Lost Prince is television the way it should be.