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ITV planning 8-part drama about Britain's Queen Victoria

By Karen Butler

LONDON, May 25 (UPI) -- ITV says it is working on an 8-part drama series focusing on the life of Britain's Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837 to 1901.

Casting for the program is now underway and production is expected to start in locations around the United Kingdom in September.

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Victoria will be made by Mammoth Screen, producers of Poldark and Endeavour, and the series is created and written by acclaimed novelist Daisy Goodwin in her screenwriting debut.

Goodwin will serve as executive producer alongside Dan McCulloch and Mammoth Screen's Joint Managing Director Damien Timmer. The project was developed by Mammoth Screen's Creative Director Rebecca Keane.

"This epic series is a chance to see the Victorian age through the eyes of the Queen herself for the first time. She's a vibrant, fascinating character whose legacy lives on today," ITV Director of Drama Steve November said in a statement. "Her life story is one that is by turns genuinely dramatic, romantic and surprising. We are delighted to be working with Daisy Goodwin, who knows her subject intimately and has brought her to life beautifully, and with Mammoth, who we know are masters of epic period drama."

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"I've been fascinated by Victoria since I started reading her diaries at university," added Goodwin. "She's a woman whose personality leaps off the page -- a tiny 4 foot 11 teenager who overnight became the most powerful woman in the world, and her candor and spirit makes for an irresistible heroine. Victoria was the first woman to have it all; she had a passionate marriage, nine children and was grandmother to most of Europe's royalty, but she also had a job, being Queen of the most important nation in the world. It wasn't easy; her reign was beset by scandal and sleaze and it was only by sheer force of personality that she prevailed. Her diaries, all 62 million words of them, give an astonishingly vivid picture of her transformation from rebellious teenager into, to my mind, our greatest Queen."

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