Tom Hughes on Prince Albert

- Victoria.

- [Tom] Our knowledge of Albert seems to be particularly colored by Victoria in her mourning.

- Albert.

- And it's quite nice to take the story and look at the young man with forward-thinking ideas.

He has a passion and a verve contained within this relatively reserved mathematician, and there's a lot of beautiful complexities to him.

I'm really enjoying delving into them.

- [Albert] I should very much like to visit your parliament.

We have nothing like this at home.

- [Tom] When we meet him, he's 19.

He's come from a different country to a place that feels very foreign.

- Why is that?

- Well, there are some MPs, Tories mainly, who would not like to feel they were being inspected by a German prince.

- [Tom] The style, the tone, the rhythm - I see.

- of England is very different to the Germany, particularly to the Germany he knows, and he's in a very isolated position, having had a relatively isolated upbringing.

His mum left him and his brother when Albert was five.

Ran off with his father's equerry, and then passed away a few years later.

I don't want to go too Oedipal here, but that relationship is such a strong one, particularly in one's developmental years, that I think his relationships with women are influenced by that in some way.

- But I do know what it is like to not have a mother.

- There is a definite difference between him and Ernest.

- [Ernest] When you take her hand to kiss it, you must look deep into her eyes, as if you are-- - [Tom] Ernest's caddishness, if you like, and Albert's more sensitive, but there is a strident element to him, and an independence to him.

- You wish to surround yourself with sycophants, please, go ahead.

I, on the other hand, would like to see things for what they are.

- For all of Albert's reserved nature, he's able to be slightly more objective and see the bigger picture.

- [Albert] I think this gentleman has produced a remarkable invention, so I find nothing to laugh at.

- [Tom] He recognizes the excitement of this development and all the other developments that you see, the steam engine and whatnot.

He's not necessarily an inventor, but he maybe has an inventor's spirit.

- I think I find myself afraid.

- [Tom] We're not just talking about a young man and a young woman falling in love, we're talking about - Afraid?

the Queen of England choosing a suitor.

And there's a hell of a lot of responsibility that comes with that.

The changes in his life that are gonna occur, Victoria and Albert are thrust into this position of great influence at a time when things are really changing.

The Industrial Revolution is just around the corner, and at the heart of that is this great passion between two young people madly in love, and I think you have to see the intensity of that passion to understand the intensity of the times that we're setting it in.