Just when you get used to Helen Mirren being Elizabeth I up pops another skinny bird in a ginger wig to confuse you all over again. This time it’s the Beeb’s turn to haul out the bodices with their new drama The Virgin Queen. Poor old Liz, she was on the throne for fifty years, saw off the Spanish Armada, took Britain from minnow to status of superpower and now she’s mainly remembered for not getting a shag.

No doubt, as Elizabeth lay there in Richmond Palace, her last breath escaping her blue lips, she reflected on her life of celibacy and thought, ‘Well at least the prurient English public won’t spend their time discussing my sex life.’ How wrong she was. It seems even more unfair on poor Liz to be so burdened considering her father remains known as plain old Henry VIII. Why not the English Psycho, or Henry the Headcase?

Blighty decided to give this new drama a miss, having had enough of seeing Robert Dudley vainly struggling with Liz’s chastity belt during the recent drama on Channel 4. There’s only so much of Liz’s sex(less) life one can take. And let’s face it, it would make better soap opera if she’d killed a few husbands.