If you cannot wait until the fifth season of The Crown, then Royal Mob: Four Sisters (Sky History) could be a good stopgap. Through a combination of dramatisations and interviews with historians, it tells the story of the Hesse sisters, Queen Victoria’s favourite granddaughters, the daughters of the Queen’s third child, Princess Alice, who died of diphtheria at the age of 35. It keeps flashing up a family tree to explain who is who in the tangle of offspring the Queen nicknamed “the Mob”, which is useful, but given that she had 42 grandchildren, and the branches are interconnected to say the least, I need it to be a permanent fixture on the screen.
It is a hugely dramatic story told with a keen awareness of its excesses and follies. The eldest sister, Victoria (played by Josie Dunn), narrates the saga from 1922. At this point in history, obviously quite a lot has happened in the world. Her hair has greyed and there are a few more lines etched on her face as she explains how they got there, and what role her sisters had to play in it all. It begins with the four young women being put through the rigmarole of the marriage market, as royal daughters and sons are paired off for political, tactical and dynastical gain. The formidable Queen Victoria (Michele Dotrice) makes it known that she feels as if her valuable counsel is being ignored, and the Hesse sisters defy her and choose their own matches. Hindsight suggests that it might have been worth listening to their grandmother, and steering clear of the Russian families, for example. As each of the girls is married off, the sense of foreboding grows; when the young Alix makes eyes at 16-year-old Nicky Romanov from across the pews at her sister’s wedding, her fate is sealed.
Usually I am wary of documentaries peppered with historical recreations; they often spill over into GCSE drama productions, aged by scratchy iMovie-style special effects. But this is all perfectly pleasant and watchable, because it is primarily a soapy drama, rather than a straightforward split between drama and documentary. From Victoria to The Crown, there appears to be an insatiable appetite for palace-based intrigue and disasters, and Royal Mob has weddings, lavish parties and betrayals, so all the components are there.
It does go a bit panto at times. “Please don’t hold my family against me,” the young Princess Victoria says to her betrothed, Prince Louis of Battenburg. “Why would I do that? Most of them are my family too,” he replies, camply. Cousin Willy, later Kaiser Wilhelm II, is a nostril-flaring villain with big Richard III energy, whose fragile ego is the catalyst for catastrophe. He is first rejected by beautiful cousin Ella, then humiliated at Queen Victoria’s golden jubilee in 1877 by his uncle Bertie, who seats him further down the table than the Queen of Hawaii, even though he is next in line to the German throne. (His coronation comes soon; his father, Fritz is ill, we are told, before seeing him touch a white handkerchief to his mouth, and cough, sadly.) Each character is introduced with a freeze-frame and the stamp of a giant caption of their name, which is very SAS Rogue Heroes. And there are a few lovely looking scenes that, at points, give it a Sofia Coppola feel, albeit one on a tight budget. At a time when great expense is being poured all over royal dramas, its contained approach does make it stand out, but in the end I found I was rooting for it, scrappiness and all.
As history lessons go, then, it is a very enjoyable one, telling a tale that cannot help but be fascinating. For most people, even the worst family arguments do not end in assassinations, revolutions and international conflict. Its documentary side mostly consists of photographs of first world war horrors and maps of empires. While it takes the personal lives of the Hesse girls as its way into the story, it cannot avoid the fact that this is about a grave and sombre period of history, so the many historians who appear to add colour, context and extra information are a necessary addition. It means this is a bit like watching The Crown and Googling which parts are true or not, except in this case, several highly qualified professors of history are doing it for you.
• The picture caption on this article was amended on 10 November 2022. The image shows Simonas Mozura as Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, not Richard Winsor as Prince Louis of Battenburg as an earlier version said.
