I've just had a lovely evening back at Normanby Hall where I work, but this time just as a member of the public watching History Wardrobe's Dressing Victoria whose Undressing Mr. Darcy I saw at Burton Constable Hall a couple of years ago.

Victoria Regency_
To quote the blurb from their website:-
Many people have an image of Queen Victoria as a gloomy widow. In `Dressing Victoria' we give a more romantic impression - both of the young Princess and the newly-married bride. With a selection of real and replica garments we show how a young woman in the mid-nineteenth-century is quite literally formed by her clothes…

You can see a crinoline in action, try the rigours of a `backboard' and even examine a set of pregnancy stays. Lady Lyttelton (lady-in-waiting) is on hand to give invaluable advice for lady-like etiquette.

The talk is based on readings from Victorian sources, including selections from the Queen's own journals. Afterwards, audience members are invited to handle authentic Victorian items from the 1840s onwards, and to have their photograph taken with Her Majesty.
An intimate view of the young Queen as she is dressed from corset to coronet.

Knowing quite a bit about Queen Victoria, costume and the Victorian period in general, I won't say that I learned a great deal new this evening (except about pre-deoderant deoderants, if see what I mean), but that isn't the point as this was an evening of entertainment with the education thrown in - or should it be throne in this case? - for good measure.

I would really recommend this group to anyone whose job it is to find entertaining evenings for any sort of cultural/historical venue of group.

By the way, the backboard which I cheerfully use to punish fidgets in the Victorian schoolroom is actually very uncomfortable as I discovered when I voluteered to 'model' it.