We went to see a preview of the new film about the Queen which is due to be released on May 24th. just in time for the Platinum Jubilee.

We had seen a preliminary version some time ago, which was a touch more personal, with more private film footage of family life in the 1950s. Now, it is more about the Queen as icon in the late twentieth century – by turns, funny, charming, revealing, affectionate, getting close to being sentimental, but staying on the right side of the line, a very tricky tightrope to have to walk, possibly too glorifying for a younger generation and not quite reverent enough for Palace officials, but for anyone born in the 1950s, as the late Roger Michell was who directed it, inescapably nostalgic, including news reel footage of the Coronation, the Queen as a child, her passion for horse racing, the requirement to go on endless factory visits, never putting a foot wrong, with very occasional glimpses of humour behind the never-ending imperturbability, ending with HM and David Attenborough looking at the labels on the trees in the garden at Buckingham Palace or maybe it was Windsor. Terribly and touchingly moving. At least that was my view seeing it again on the big screen.