I've just come out grinning, after seeing Stephen Frears' film Victoria and Abdul, at the century-old Roseville Cinema in Sydney. It is a gorgeous-looking period film that celebrates the feisty affair between Queen Victoria of England (1819-1901, played by Dame Judi Dench, who is 82) and her handsome servant Abdul Karim (Ali Fazal; 3 Idiots, Furious 7), a clerk working in an Agra prison. The Queen is 68 and Abdul Karim is 24, when he has been shipped from Agra to present a mohur (gold coin) to her majesty at her golden jubilee in 1887. She's bored stiff with matters of state. He stares at her, all twinkly-eyed: she stares back at the tall, dark, handsome fellow, who suddenly drops to kiss her feet, unbidden. Thus begins a flirtatious romance that brings the zest back into the queen's life, and lasts 14 years till her death at 82.