The Queen and I
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
NOW A MAJOR TV ADAPTATION STARRING DAVID WALLIAMS & SAMANTHA BOND
The Queen and I is a hilarious satire on modern Britain and an exploration of what it really means to be human, by the bestselling author of the Adrian Mole series.
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The Royals, they're just like us . . .
THE MONARCHY HAS BEEN DISMANTLED
When a Republican party wins the General Election, their first act in power is to strip the royal family of their assets and titles and send them to live on a housing estate in the Midlands.
Exchanging Buckingham Palace for a two-bedroomed semi in Hell Close (as the locals dub it), caviar for boiled eggs, servants for a social worker named Trish, the Queen and her family learn what it means to be poor among the great unwashed.
But is their breeding sufficient to allow them to rise above their changed circumstance or deep down are they really just like everyone else?
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'No other author could imagine this so graphically, demolish the institution so wittily and yet leave the family with its human dignity intact' The Times
'Absorbing, entertaining . . . the funniest thing in print since Adrian Mole' Daily Telegraph
'Kept me rolling about until the last page' Daily Mail
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Townsend, author of the phenomenally successful Adrian Mole books, here brings off an audacious notion with considerable elan. She imagines a Britain where an unforgiving, newly elected Republican Party decides that the entire Royal Family must learn to live like other Britons--or in their case, like desperately poor lower-class Britons on a hideous housing estate in a provincial city. A notable farceur, Townsend has terrific fun imagining how they would cope: the Queen buckles down sturdily, mindful of stiff-upper-lip duty; Prince Philip goes to pieces and takes to his bed; Margaret remains a royal pain, perpetually and irritably in search of a cigarette; Diana haunts thrift shops for designer castoffs and snares a flashy West Indian boyfriend; Charles, infatuated with a zaftig neighbor, gets involved in a brawl and is jailed , while his organic garden goes to pieces; Anne copes stolidly, much helped by the gift of a horse--and the Queen Mum, never quite aware of what is happening, dies peacefully in her little bungalow, and has a splendid horse-drawn funeral in a home-made coffin. Meanwhile Harris, the Queen's corgi, runs wild with a pack of mongrels. The book is uproarious and touching by turns, with a perfect eye and ear for the class gulfs in Britain and the appalling lot of those at the bottom of the heap. Only a silly throwaway ending disappoints--but how else to end such a cautionary tale? This was a huge seller in Britain, and should delight all royalty addicts here too.
