Victoria and Abdul: Judi Dench and Michael Gambon talk politics and sandwiches in exclusive new clip

The pair play Queen Victoria and Lord Salisbury in the first-look scene 
Jennifer Ruby13 September 2017
The Weekender

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Judi Dench and Michael Gamdon discuss the political climate and finger food in an exclusive clip from the forthcoming Victoria and Abul.

In character as Queen Victoria and Lord Salisbury, the pair talk about the famine in India and the Boer war while attending a lavish garden party in a scene from Stephen Frears’ new film

“There’s another famine in India and more trouble in Ireland I’m afraid. Suez is a perennial nightmare and I’m afraid the Boers are at it again,” the Prime Minister tells the Queen.

The monarch asks: “Did you bring me any good news, Prime minister?”

“Well we’ve decided to annex Zululand, Your Majesty,” he replies. “We really have to box in the Boers if we possibly can.”

“Oh Prime Minister you really are terribly depressing. Ah, sandwiches,” the Queen responds.

This is the second outing in the role for Dench, who won an Oscar for her portrayal of the monarch 20 years ago in Mrs Brown.

“I consider it to be a sequel of the story we told then,” she said at the Toronto Film Festival. “I hope it will match up to the person that I played in Mrs Brown.”

Frears’ new film follows the story of the widowed queen in the final chapter of her life, during which she strikes up an unlikely friendship with handsome young Indian man, Abdul.

A friendship blossoms between the pair and he becomes her highest-ranking ‘teacher’ as he instructs her in Urdu.

Victoria and Abdul is in cinemas nationwide on September 15.

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