ITV Orders Second Season of Victoria

LONDON: ITV has renewed its successful royal drama Victoria, which stars Jenna Coleman as the young Queen.

From screenwriter Daisy Goodwin and producers Mammoth Screen, the series launched at the end of August on ITV and has been averaging 7.7 million viewers and a 29.7 percent share of viewing, based on consolidated overnights. This makes it the top-rated ITV drama of the year so far.

ITV’s director of television, Kevin Lygo, said: “Mammoth and Daisy Goodwin have brought the characters so vividly to life in this series, and we’re thrilled with the reception for Victoria. We’re pleased to be able to confirm that Jenna Coleman and Tom Hughes will return to continue the story on ITV.”

Goodwin said: “Even though she reigned in the 19th century, Victoria is a heroine for our times. In the next [season] she faces the very modern dilemma of how to juggle children with her husband and her job. As Victoria will discover, it’s hard to be a wife, a mother and ruler of the most powerful nation on earth!”

Mammoth Screen’s Damien Timmer said: “Following the audience response to Victoria we are delighted that the extraordinary Jenna Coleman will be returning to her throne for a second [season]. The next few years of Victoria’s reign are packed full of extraordinary real-life events, with constitutional crises, scandals at court and personal challenges aplenty for the Queen and Prince Albert. God Save the Queen!”