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    The Queen and I
    The Queen and I
    The Queen and I
    Audiobook7 hours

    The Queen and I

    Written by Sue Townsend

    Narrated by Angela Thorne

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    When a Republican party wins the General Election, they strip the royal family of everything and send them to live on a housing estate in the Midlands. Exchanging caviar for boiled eggs, servants for a social worker named Trish, the Queen and her family learn what it means to be poor among the great unwashed. Is their breeding sufficient to allow them to rise above their changed circumstance or deep down are they really just like everyone else?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherW. F. Howes Ltd
    Release dateJun 4, 2015
    ISBN9781471293597
    The Queen and I
    Author

    Sue Townsend

    Sue Townsend was born in Leicester, England, in 1946. Despite not learning to read until the age of eight, leaving school at fifteen with no qualifications, and having three children by the time she was in her mid-twenties, she managed to be very well read. Townsend wrote secretly for twenty years, and after joining a writers’ group at the Phoenix Theatre, Leicester, she won a Thames Television Award for her first play, Womberang, and became a professional playwright and novelist. Following the publication of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾, she continued to make the nation laugh and prick its conscience with seven more volumes of Adrian’s diaries, five popular novels—including The Queen and I, Number Ten, and The Woman Who Went to Bed for a Year—and numerous well-received plays. Townsend passed away in 2014 at the age of sixty-eight, and remains widely regarded as Britain’s favorite comic writer.  

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    Reviews for The Queen and I

    3.5/5

    296 ratings17 reviews

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    • 1/5
      I think this was meant to be funny.
    • 3/5
      So it probably wasn't the best of timing that meant I was listening to this the day the Queen died. But I'm not sure that made a huge difference to my reading enjoyment (or lack thereof). It is billed as provocative and hilarious. I'm not sure it lived up to billing. It is based on the surmise that at the General Election the Republican Party, led by Jack Barker, win. They form a government and depose the monarchy, apparently all by Monday morning. The Queen and her family find themselves living in a council house on Hellebore close, only 5 letters are missing and it is Hell Close to all and sundry. There are a significant number of fish out of water set pieces, with some of the royals presented as being less practical than others. In some cases it feels that she has them badly misrepresented. Their interactions with their very poor neighbours are not entirely without malice, which seems to be aimed at both parties. The first portion of the book felt, to me, to be bordering on cruel to all concerned. It also feels like a portion of the dispute was manufactured. The argument between the Queen & Prince Philip about what their surname should be seemed redundant when the royal family's surname was changed to the double barrelled Mountbatten-Windsor in the 60s. by the time this was published it should hardly have raised an argument. The book improves as it progresses. It becomes less about attempts at comedic set pieces and becomes more about the relationship between the various residents. There are some really touching moments, Philomena and the Queen Mother, for example, and their relationship, is one that goes beyond and reaches an greater depth. Harris, the corgi finds a whole new world outside the door of number 9 and generally causes mayhem. But that has to be balanced against the farcical elements and an increasingly unlikely story about the antics of the government. I borrowed this from the library and the last chapter had a scratch so bad that I couldn't listen to it, but I can't say I feel any great need to seek it out to finish it off. While the idea is timeless, the details are not. The giro arriving in the post, the phone box on the end of the road, there are any number of references that anchor this in the 1990s. That probably makes sense to those who remember that time, but I wonder how much need explaining that would have seemed obvious. It feels rather dated, in that sense. It raises, along the way, questions of the welfare state and how should that be structured. The people of Hell Close are trapped in poverty, some of them have had poor education and can't help their children out of their predicament, their school is crumbling, there are too many pupils. The local hospital has closed wards and the doctors overworked. The pension is barely enough to live on and they all struggle to make ends meet. It raises the question do we need a monarchy - and that, too, remains a valid question, along with an elite ruling class that seems to be more elite and less in touch with reality with every passing year. And all of those are perfectly valid points to have been making in the 1990s and they remain equally valid now. It feels like this is trying to be more than one book at once and I feel it fails at being a success at any of them. It improved significantly, but still only manages an OK
    • 4/5
      Sue Townsend turns her gimlet eye both on the Royal family and on a resurgent British Labour government in this hilarious novel. An election has brought s radical administration into power that abolishes the monarchy and sends the Queen, Prince Phillip, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, Princess Anne, and Prince Charles with Diana and the boys are to live in Council housing in a housing estate in the Midlands. Prince Philip immediately takes to his bed and fades away, but the Queen, Princess Anne, and remarkably Charles and Diana prove to be more adaptable leaning to live with government red tape, the necessity to make do, and the remarkable kindness of their neighbors.While some reviewers have called this book dated, I find it oddly prescient. As the queen now teeters towards her century mark, the survival of the monarchy is very much in question. While they may not end up in a council flat, they may not be wearing crowns much longer.
    • 4/5
      Sprightly fantasy about what might happen if the British Royal Family was suddenly removed from power and reduced to living on the dole. As the Queen, Prince Phillip, Princess Margaret, Princess Anne and her children, and Charles and Diana and their boys settle into Council housing in a dreary Midlands subdivision, surrounded by guards to keep the press and curiosity-seekers away, each member of the family faces their new estate in life with a different mindset. The neighbors' reactions also range from tongue-tied awe to puzzled acceptance, though the Queen's spoiled Corgi, Harris, causes more than one raised eyebrow.The book has some fun moments, but Townsend loses points for the abrupt and easy-way-out ending.
    • 4/5
      Excellent, funny and uplifting with great chacters Sue Townsend is a master writer of humour.
    • 3/5
      In this anarchic comical story, the Queen falls asleep on election night in April 1992, expecting that the following day either "nice" John Major or "perfectly agreeable" Neil Kinnock will be prime minister, both of whom she prefers to Mrs Thatcher, "whose mad eyes and strangulated voice [had] quite unnerved [her]". Instead, she wakes up to discover that republican Jack Barker has become Prime Minister, having used his position in the Television Technicians' Union to broadcast subliminal messages to viewers to vote the end the monarchy. The Queen and the rest of the royal family (except Andrew and Edward who are abroad) are forced to live on a council estate. Unlike the rest of the family, the Queen and Princess Anne take to their new lives and emerge with more dignity than the others. Written at a time when the monarchy was going through a lot of troubles and was relatively unpopular (this was the Queen's annus horribilis), this is very funny, but also rather sad and pathetic, and in my view hasn't aged well, unlike the wonderful Adrian Mole series, for which the author is better known.
    • 5/5
      I’ve only recently discovered the books of Sue Townsend, and this is one of the best.It tells of the dire fate of the British royal family when the People’s Republican Party with Jack Barker as PM wins the election.What happens is that the monarchy has been overturned and the Queen and her family evicted from Buckingham Palace and relocated in Hell(ebore) Close, which is a street inhabited by, Horror of Horrors, the poorest members of the working class.The Queen is allocated a pensioner’s bungalow. She remarks, “Will my staff be living in or out?”“Jack laughed and looked at his fellow Republicans. --- They laughed along with Jack. ‘You don’t seem to understand. There’ll be no staff, no dressers, no cooks, no secretaries, cleaners, chauffeurs.’Prince Philip falls into a deep depression, retires to his bed and refuses to eat. He says,”It’s abso-bloody-utely impossible. I refuse. I’d sooner live in a bloody ditch.”Charles, who now sports a ponytail, is ecstatic with this simple life he has always yearned for (he has, of course, his own littlecouncil house together with Diana and the two kids); he spends his time pottering in his little organic garden.The Queen has a little trouble communicating with her neighbours, Tony and Beverly. “’Excuse me, but would you have an axe I could borrow?’‘An ix?’ repeated Tony.‘Yes, an axe.’ The Queen came to their front gate.‘An ix?’ puzzled Beverley.‘Yes!’‘I dunno what an ix is’, Tony said.‘You don’t know what an axe is?’‘No.’‘One uses it for chopping wood.’The Queen was growing impatient. She had made a simple request; her new neighbours were obviously morons. She was aware that education standards had fallen, but not to know what an axe was – It was a scandal.’‘I need an implement of some kind to gain access to my house.’‘Arse?’‘House!’The driver volunteered his services as translator. His hours talking to the Queen had given him a new found linguistic confidence.”“Furniture filled every room. They had to squeeze past each other with frequent apologies for touching.”The children, William and Harry, are quick to learn the new dialect. “Charles --- said, ‘Harry for goodness sake, speak properly.’Harry said, ‘If I speak proper I get my cowin’ face smashed in.’‘By whom?’ asked Charles.‘By who’, corrected Harry. ‘By the kids in ‘ell Close, that’s who.’”The Queen’s dog, Harris, allowed to roam freely in the neighbourhood, soon becomes the leader of a (dog) gang, Top Dog.Charles isn’t too kind to Diana, which frequently leads to tears. He has been arrested, unjustly charged with a minor misdemeanour. Diana checks her wardrobe to choose something to wear in court – he ends up getting six months in gaol.The Queen finds it difficult to scrape together enough coins for the family’s basic needs, money for the bus and the meter: the lights keep going out and she then needs to find a fifty pence coin for the meter.She has heard that she can make a cheap, nutritious broth if she purchases some bones from the butcher. The butcher’s shop has closed but when she tells him the bones are for the dog, he relents and gives her “a collection of gruesome bones”.Sure Townsend has a knack for rendering the speech of the various classes, well, at least, the working and upper classes, and we’re shown the penuriousness of the working classes in Hell Close and enlightened about the tinned and processed foods on which they subsist. (If the Royal family had had to live on such foods, I doubt whether they would have been as long-lived as is the case.) She has also perfectly captured the personalities of the various members of the Royal family.The book is hilarious, perhaps Sue Townsend’s best. (I haven’t read them all yet.) If you like humorous books or need to be cheered up, I greatly recommend that you read this one.
    • 2/5
      Not sure where to start with this one. The blurb on the back-cover looked quite an interesting premise: A socialist government wins the election and the Royal family are evicted to council housing, and told to get on without any staff or commodities.

      Apart from Harris, the corgie, all the family members are portrayed the same way as you would expect in the papers or a pretty lame impressions show, which makes the plot quite tepid and disappointing when comparing it to other caricatures such as Gin O'Clock.

      And, oh yes, the ending - just a tad predictable...
    • 3/5
      A bit dated now, but still entertaining. I highly recommend the audio version narrated by Barbara Rosenblat, as she does an amazing job with the large and varied cast of characters.
    • 2/5
      A bit silly but fun in places. Would have been 3 stars but cop-out ending dropped it greatly in my expectation. A quick, easy read though.
    • 4/5
      What a hoot! The royal family is fired by a newly elected "Republican" government and they are sent to live in a council estate. Each of them copes differently with the situation, but as you might expect the Queen bears up quite swimmingly.
    • 4/5
      This is one that I find myself reading and rereading. I love the twist of the Queen being the Queen no longer and coping in a lower class environment. I love seeing how her relatives, there with her, cope or do not cope. It is interesting to see what remains inside people when almost everything familiar is gone.
    • 4/5
      Profoundly silly and utterly enjoyable. The premise is of course totally unrealistic, but it's no less rollickingly fun to contemplate for its unapologetic flight of fancy. In The Queen and I, Sue Townsend imagines exactly what would happen if England's monarchy were abruptly ended and the Queen and all her family were kicked to the curb to a life on the dole and in public housing. There is perhaps a bit of light social commentary included in the narrative, but the main focus is clearly the absurd struggles of the entitled wealthy to adapt to a tight budget and everyman circumstances. Townsend's portrayal of the beleaguered royals is perhaps a bit caricaturing but nonetheless affectionate. The Queen and I is perfectly suited for a bit of cheerful light reading to speed up travel or a commute, or to otherwise just brighten your day.
    • 4/5
      What would happen to the Royal family if the British people decided they were no longer needed? The Queen and her children have no "real" skills to earn a living, so they are put into a council house and left to fend for themselves. This really is a funny book if you can overlook that it was written when Diana was still alive.
    • 5/5
      The idea for the story is as simple as it is original: What if the british people decide they don't want a queen anymore? Well, in this story, the royal family is dumped in one of the worst neighbourhoods in Britain with only a small amount of money and have to try to make the best of it. The story is written with a great sense of humor and Townsend definitely lacks no fantasy. On everypage it is clear that she loved writing this. And I enjoyed reading it!
    • 5/5
      Hilarious and also has moments of poignancy. I've read this over and over again, though am not a fan of Townsend's other books.
    • 3/5
      This book is set in 1992 (if it was meant to be a real study of how the royal family would deal with being forced from their position I would say the author ought to have used a fictional point some time in the future, but since it’s a comedy the supposed character traits of the royal family as it was then composed are needed) after a surprising election. Although I was aware that the book was trying to be funny, most of the time I just didn’t see it enough to be actually entertained. Quasi-entertained, maybe. I had trouble throughout the book suspending disbelief long enough to really get into it, so maybe that’s my problem. It was hard for me to imagine that any stretch of the imagination could include the royal family meekly living out their exile in a projects house (called Hells Close of all things), instead of doing as exiled royals have throughout the century and living with rich friends and family members abroad until the whole thing blows over. So I readily admit that the fact that I had so much trouble letting go of reality probably hindered my enjoyment of the book, but considering all the effort I put into suspending my disbelief at the end of the day I felt it was not at all worth it.