ROYALTY: Cate Blanchett at the premiere

Not quite a virgin queen

Shekhar Kapur can consider himself to be on the A list of UK celebrities since he was invited to the premiere of a big movie screened last week as part of the 51st London Film Festival. Mind you, it would have been surprising if he hadn’t since he was the director of Elizabeth: The Golden Age, a sort of sequel to his 1998 movie, Elizabeth, which then, as now, cast the 38-year-old Australian actress, Cate Blanchett, in the lead role.

It is good to see the director of Bandit Queen actually complete a film rather than put up poster after poster for movies (Mandela, Pani, etc) which never get made.

When I first broke the news to a group of journalist colleagues in London that an Indian director had made a film suggesting that Elizabeth, the Virgin Queen, wasn’t a virgin at all, they were not pleased. Who was this Johnny who was interfering with British history, they wanted to know.

Luckily for Shekhar, he was backed by a raft of British historians I consulted who said that Elizabeth’s virginity was “more symbolic rather than literal”, meaning that to rule effectively she had to project herself in an asexual mode.

Last week Shekhar said of Cate, who owes her current stardom, at least, partly to the director who insisted on casting her in the lead role nine years ago when others were less convinced: “She’s absolutely incredible. It’s a much more difficult part (than in the original film), a much tougher part. It’s a stunning performance. She deserves an Oscar — she didn’t get it the first time round and she deserved it then.”

What Shekhar means is that his direction is stunning and that he deserves an Oscar, which he deserved but didn’t get the first time round.

The new 115-minute movie, set in 1585, explores the relationship between Elizabeth and the “handsome” explorer Sir Walter Raleigh.

Shekhar can take heart that many of the comments about the movie from ordinary viewers and critics alike have been very positive.

One viewer summed it up: “This movie approaches the brink of becoming a corny, hokey travesty but recovers to become an incredibly powerful and unique portrayal of Elizabeth I and her closest advisers and the political situation in Western Europe in the late 16th century. This movie is worth watching.”

Incidentally, the guest list at last week’s premiere reflects the changing nature of who is considered a celebrity in Britain. Those attending included one Chanelle Hayes, 19, a Victoria Beckham lookalike who appeared on Big Brother (not Celebrity Big Brother) but did not win. To call her a dumb blonde, some would argue, would be unkind to dumb blondes.

SMALL WORLD: The superjumbo A380

Size matters

A senior Air India official explained the merger of Air India and Indian Airlines to me last week by saying: “Size matters.”

By that logic, it may not be too long before we see the A380, which had its inaugural flight with Singapore Airlines last week, landing at Mumbai, Delhi and Calcutta airports (which will give airlines and baggage handlers the happy experience of losing the luggage of up to 850 passengers in one go).

At Heathrow, work on Terminal Five, which will handle the A380s, is well under way.

People I meet speak well of Kingfisher (their giveaway red pens are very useful) and indeed Vijay Mallya has announced he has placed an order for five superjumbos but is he showing off or does he really mean business?

My dream would be to combine supersonic with superjumbos so that planeloads of people can do India-UK in three hours.

YOUNG ‘N’ OLD: Anjum Anand

Spicier Goddesses

Indian television chef Anjum Anand, who is making a name as well as a lot of money for herself, has been called a “domestic Goddess” — a flattering description that had hitherto been reserved for Nigella Lawson.

Nigella, a former journalist who has become a millionairess on the strength of her cookery books and TV programmes, is becoming bigger — literally — according to the tabloids.

While the first episode of her new 13-part TV series on BBC2 showed a “relatively slimline Miss Lawson, in black trousers and a denim jacket”, the Daily Mail noted cruelly, “the latest episode featured a decidedly more voluptuous cook whipping up an indulgent chocolate pear pudding. Opening the fridge door and reaching for a tub of ice cream, the mother of two revealed a rather more curvaceous derriere and a trace of pot belly.”

“There’s no beating about the bush — she’s a porker,” the paper quoted a viewer’s comment.

Meanwhile, as Britain celebrated National Curry Week last week, the supermarket chain, Sainsbury’s — its Indian meals are supplied by Sir Gulam Noon — reported that its customers now demand spicier fare, thanks partly to more frequent holiday travel to Goa and Kerala.

The mild chicken korma, which used to be the best seller, is now in fifth place, having been replaced by the much hotter chicken Madras. This is followed by chicken tikka masala, chicken jalfrezi and lamb rogan josh.

But all is not well in the world of Indian food. Celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, notorious for swearing on television, has dealt with “Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares”.

The notoriously short-tempered chef, who is now targeting town or cities with the worst restaurants, has the Curry Lounge in Nottingham in his sights in a new TV series.

Ramsay said distastefully: “The place was terrible.”

ALL HYPE: James Bond stamps

Return to sender

There was no sign of either Aishwarya Rai or Shilpa Shetty in the wonderful James Bond stamps brought out last week by Royal Mail to mark the centenary of Ian Fleming’s birthday. All that hype about them becoming the first Indian Bond girls has now proved to be just that — hype emanating from their own PR stables.

This England

At 66, Sir Menzies Campbell was forced to resign as leader of the Liberal Democratic Party after only 19 months in the post because he was thought to be “too old”.

The two candidates fighting to succeed him are Nick Clegg and Chris Huhne, whippersnappers at 38 and 53 respectively.

If only Britain would learn from India which has demonstrated that senile politicians are far too tired to do anything — including taking their country to needless war.

Let’s not forget that even after 10 years as Prime Minister, Tony Blair is still a sprightly 54 and quite rightly far too young to be taken seriously in India.

Tittle tattle

CELL TALK: Dates, not deities in upwardly mobile India

The veritable explosion in the mobile phone industry in India — in fact, I bought one from Rahul Electronics in Churchgate in Mumbai last week — has attracted pages of gushing publicity in British and American newspapers.

Still, it was intriguing to note that right in the middle of one session of anjali during Durga Puja in our locality in north Calcutta last week, a girl was busy sending text messages. Back in London, commentators on the sub-continent probably do not realise that in the brave new India of nine per cent GDP, dates now take precedence over deities.