"The Lost Prince" (2003) - BBC Miniseries on Prince John, son of George V

[EliseLadyofLancaster]

 

[wymanda]

The Mini-Series was screened here in Australia in 2003. I found it an interesting story but it did portray Queen Mary as being very unfeeling towards her youngest son.
Viewed with the opinions of today it does appear cruel that Prince John was shut away at Sandringham. However we should remember that we now have medications to control epileptic seizures which were not available at the time. It must have been very frightening for his parents & siblings to have no control over the seizures.

It is interesting that mention has been made of the name John being considered unlucky by the royal family. Prince John's grandparents (Edward VII & Alexandra) lost their third son at only a few days old. He had also been named John.

 

[micas]

I saw a TV seri and they make Queen Mary very cold a distant mother. Like this we can see that she is a nice Lady. Normally if you saw her pics she look cold. But she love her kids that is importante.
Is a very hard show to see, when a people like this have and atack, normally is unforgatble. So, i belive they do the best think.

 

[Alexandra]

Here is the link to the site telling of the film The Lost Prince.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/lostprince/gina_mckee.shtml

And here to the boy, who playes the role of John.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/drama/lostprince/matthew_thomas.shtml

I wish to see the film very soon.

 

[Alexandra]

It is so thrilling! It really is!

Yesterday I saw in the telly we will have the film of prince John, Lost Prince, in Easter in the television! I hardly can wait for so long a time! Oh!

 

[Claire]

People who have BBC Prime will be able to see the mini-series, "The Lost Prince" on Friday 9th and next week Friday 16th. I missed the first part, so I con't wait either.

Claire

 

[Alexandra]

In the Easter weekend I saw The Lost Prince in the telly and of course I taped it. And just to make sure, I recorded it on a brand new video band. So you can only imagine my "horror" when later I found out that the band was not intact! The second part of the film on the video band is quite OK, but the first part is full of oddities. The film hops and "flames" and goes sometimes very fast, and the voices/sound doesn't work, etc. That has never before happend to me and the band was brand new! Why did it then happen just now in this very important situation! :woot:

The film itself .... well, it was quite good. But I realised once again that I like better documents than fiction. The whole time I compared the happenings in the film with the reality and became irritated, when something just didn't "match" right. But anyhow, I recommend the film fo all of you. It is worth to see.

 

[Dennism]

The Lost Prince will be on PBS channels in the US on October 17th and 24th. It should be at 9:00 PM. Check local listings. Here´s a page about it:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/lostprince/index.html

 

[Claire]

I thought it was a good mini- series. I just wondered why the writer decided to show Queen Mary and King George VI in such a light as their letters showed them to be quiet good parents. When docters wanted to have him institutionalised, they refused, as they believed it would make his situation worse and knew how much he loved the people he grew up with. Queen Mary also writes very fondly about Johnnie in her letters. She wrote a very nice one to Jan Smuts about Johnnie learning the National Anthem and about thier mutual love of nature.

 

[EmpressRouge]

I just finished watching The Lost Prince, and found it was interesting that the Tsar's family was speaking Russian. I might off, but I'm pretty sure imperial family along with entire court spoke French (and maybe English sometimes). That and I found Tsarina Alexandra's character portrayed badly. Yes, she was a very bad ruler, but the movie made her look like a domineering snob. While she did have considerable influence over her husband, she was not a snob. She loved England, as she spent a lot of time with her grandmother Queen Victoria there. She was also a very deeply religious and hated the loose morals of the Russian court. While she grew to love Russia and its people (unfortunately, she never showed it), she abhored the extravegant court social life, shunned it, and was shunned by it. I never admired her as a leader or ruler at all, but the movie really did get her personality wrong.

 

[Toledo]

We just saw the DVD yesterday and was a great documentary-dramatization, made the Royals and their relatives look more humane in quite a different background, their family life. Especially Queen Mary, whom I always thought of being as cold as she is presented in her pictures. She was just aware of the image she should represent and acted accordingly considering whom she was married to. I think Queen Elizabeth II is a perfect example of how, like her Grandmother, a person in the public eye should act, with nerves of steel no matter what life throws at you. It also explored the life of the Russian cousins better than any movie I've seen, the almost blind devotion of Nicholas to Alexandra and their daugthers, more comfortable and down to earth with their position than their English relatives.

 

[Beetlejuice]

Sad story. I'll have to see that movie that was made of it.

 

[tiaraprin]

I just finished watching The Lost Prince, and found it was interesting that the Tsar's family was speaking Russian. I might off, but I'm pretty sure imperial family along with entire court spoke French (and maybe English sometimes). That and I found Tsarina Alexandra's character portrayed badly. Yes, she was a very bad ruler, but the movie made her look like a domineering snob. While she did have considerable influence over her husband, she was not a snob. She loved England, as she spent a lot of time with her grandmother Queen Victoria there. She was also a very deeply religious and hated the loose morals of the Russian court. While she grew to love Russia and its people (unfortunately, she never showed it), she abhored the extravegant court social life, shunned it, and was shunned by it. I never admired her as a leader or ruler at all, but the movie really did get her personality wrong.

I have read that amongst themselves, Nicholas and Alexandra always spoke in English.

Yes Tsarina Alexandra was not the villain that she has been portrayed. She was a loving, yet insecure woman who married into the wrong country at the wrong time. Despite the miracle of finding a true love match, Alexandra married into a royal court that would forever look down upon her as the daughter of a minor German Prince who was too "English" for their liking. Her mother-in-law detested her and did everything to upstage her and usurp her position as the reigning consort.

If she were alive today, she would completely sympathize with the Crown Princess of Japan in the pressure for a son. When after 10 years she finally produced one, he was a haemophiliac. This brought the ultimate tragedy and defeat of Alexandra's spirit.

 

[Harry's polo shirt]

Isn't it the man who determines the sex of the baby? So the Crown Princess of Japan shouldn't feel any pressure her husband should.
I watched the Lost Prince on PBS along time ago, it was so interesting. It was strange how they made him stay in the little house, while people were visiting. But back then they probably didn't know much about his learning disorder and epilepsy.

 

[tiaraprin]

Isn't it the man who determines the sex of the baby? So the Crown Princess of Japan shouldn't feel any pressure her husband should.

I think the problem is that Masako cannot either get pregnant or sustain a pregnancy. Yes, it has been a long established fact that a man determines the sex of the baby--too bad Henry VIII didn't know this!! He would have had the fact banned from knowledge in England!!!!

 

[lashinka2002]

Indeed King Henry's head would have rolled instead of his many wives....
Those poor women!

 

[tiaraprin]

Indeed King Henry's head would have rolled instead of his many wives....
Those poor women!

Poor Katharine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn!!

If it were known back then what we know now, I could see Henry mounting a scientific experiment "guaranteed" to give him the outcome he wanted!! Heck, if he could overthrow the Pope in his country, what is science to him??

 

[Jellybean]

Thank you so much, for the information about The Lost Prince.

 

[BeatrixFan]

The Lost Prince Question

I've just watched the Lost Prince which was shown in two parts here over Christmas. In the second half, John gives a recital and plays the trumpet. Does anyone know what the piece is called? It was incredibly moving.

 

[royal005]

Ive just watched the second part, but i dont what the piece is called, but i must say i didnt like the way that prince john was treated, I wondering if Queen Mary and the King was really like that, very cold- but in some cases i can see were QE2 gets it from. I think things would have been a lot different if that was in todays time.

 

[BeatrixFan]

I think the problem was that they didn't understand his condition at all. I think that at the end, George and Mary really seemed to hate themselves for not being closer to John. I felt for Queen Alexandra. What a horrid life she had.

 

[Zonk]

I definitely agree that the major problem was that his family couldn't or didn't understand his illness. Also, based on what I have read about Prince John, he was was close to his brother Prince George, the future Duke of Kent.

The King and Queen definitely weren't affectionate with their children. It seems to skip a generation.

I also loved the scenese with the Nicholas II and his family. While I am sure (and most will agree) that most of these movies (regarding royal families) are not accurate with the facts, you could definitely feel the angst that George V felt over not offering sanctuary to his cousins family and the guilt he must have felt at their deaths.

 

[BeatrixFan]

Well, I'll be honest, when John was playing the trumpet and George was getting teary and Alexandra was sobbing her heart out I did have a little cry. It was just so sad. The story of Nicholas and Alexandra always does that to me.

 

[Sean.~]

The reasons for John's isolation were many. After all, this was a time when abnormal children (and adults) were dismissed by society as mentally handicapped. They were a source of shame to their families (even more so for a Royal Family). Also, there were no drugs available to control seizures. Thus the King and Queen couldn't risk their son having a seizure in public and the press reprorting it. Although it sounds cruel by today's standards,
isolating him was the only choice the Royal Family had, given the time and
place.

One can argue that isolation was also beneficial for Prince John. It allowed him to avoid the
rigours of public life & the critical public eye. Moreover, rather than bein uncaring, Queen Mary spent more time with him than any of her other children -- She was struck hard by his death, although she never showed it, as was expected of someone in her position (For instance soon after the death of her own young son, Queen Marie of Romania werote to the then Crown Prince Carolabout carrying on her
duty even though her young son had just died and that she kept her tears
for the night).

After Prince John's funeral Queen Mary wrote "Little Johnny looked very peaceful...he just slept quietly in his heavenly home, no pain, no struggle, just peace for the troubled spirit".

 

[Saragli]

I dont think they were cold at all and I dont blame them one bit for what they did to John. Back then Doctors wer gods. You listened to them and took what they said as the gospel. Doctors that it was best to put challenged kids in isolation. That was the norm back then. Prince John was to be no exeption. I really liked that show. I watched part two last week. It is really moving and fairly accurate. Prince John was so innocent and as Georgie said in the end, "he was the only one of us who could really be himself." It was a really good documentry. Queen Mary was close Johnny and spent a lot of time with him. A day or two after he died she wrote in her diary "I miss him already."

 

[Elspeth]

It could be one of a couple of pieces by the look of it; there are two pieces near the end of this list where it says the visual cues involve Johnny playing the trumpet:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/lostprince/notes_music.html

 

[BeatrixFan]

Elspeth - thankyou so much! I'm going to have a look around to see if I can download it anywhere.

 

[Elspeth]

You're welcome! I expect you'd be able to find the sound track new or second hand somewhere if you really wanted to splash out.

 

[susan alicia]

Lost Prince, the [Soundtrack]
[FONT=verdana,arial,helvetica]TV Soundtrack (Artist)[/FONT]
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica][SIZE=-1]
Availability: usually dispatched within 1 to 2 working days [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica][SIZE=-1]1 Used & New from £49.99 [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica][SIZE=-1]See larger photo [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica][SIZE=-1]Audio CD (January 20, 2003)
Number of Discs:1 [/SIZE][/FONT][FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica][SIZE=-1]Label: BBC Music ASIN: B00007MFH7 Catalogue Number: WMSF60692 [/SIZE][/FONT]http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00007MFH7/202-2146370-2919808

Elspeth - thankyou so much! I'm going to have a look around to see if I can download it anywhere.

 

[BeatrixFan]

Thanks Susan Alicia - Very much appreciated. I may well get that.