When princesses Elizabeth and Margaret gave slip to royal routine

Emily Watson is the wartime queen whose daughters went AWOL.

Emily Watson as Queen Elizabeth I in A ROYAL NIGHT OUT

The distance between the present young generation of British royals and their predecessors couldn’t be more stark. Only weeks after Prince Harry had the confidence to dine at a Perth restaurant without any hullabaloo, cinemagoers are being treated to a dramatisation of a very different public outing by his grandmother.

A Royal Night Out is a light-as-souffle imagining of what might have happened the evening princesses Elizabeth and Margaret snuck out of Buckingham Palace to spend the night mingling and revelling incognito with their subjects on the night of Victory in Europe (VE Day) in 1945.

The outing has captured attention as the Allied nations this month marked the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II. The princesses’ mischievous evening was the subject of a recent Channel Four documentary, The Queen’s Big Night Out, and before that The Guardian’s film critic Peter Bradshaw imagined his own scenario in the comic novel, Night of Triumph.

What is known about the night has only been recounted by the Queen’s long-time friend and later racing manager, Lord Porchester, who escorted the ladies with Royal Horse Guards officers and others. The Queen spoke briefly in 1985 of the night.

Emily Watson plays the Queen Mother, opposite Rupert Everett as King George VI, Sarah Gadon as Elizabeth and Bel Powley as Margaret. Watson says the events depicted in A Royal Night Out can only be “pure speculation”.

“Various people have alluded to seeing them at various clubs or somewhere like the Ritz, but it’s not for public knowledge,” she says. “We just know they mingled with the crowd and went out.”

That much is true. The Queen — who said in 1985 “I think it was one of the most memorable nights of my life” — admitted she sug­gested the duo be allowed outside their sheltered confines at Buckingham Palace to join the party of revellers outside.

Princess Elizabeth was in her Auxiliary Territorial Service uniform and Princess Margaret was all glammed up, accompanied by a group of 16 trusted friends. In the film, just two Royal Horse Guards officers escort the duo before the sisters give them the slip.

The Queen later said she was “terrified of being recognised — so I pulled my uniform cap well down over my eyes”, but a grenadier officer said he refused to be seen in the company of another officer improperly dressed, so she had to put her cap on normally.

They saw their parents appear on the balcony greeting the rapturous crowd, after they sent a message informing them they were in position outside the palace gates.

Beyond that, the evening is speculation beyond their visit to Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square. And that’s where Julian Jarrold’s film becomes a surprisingly enjoyable, frothy farce anchored by some delicious performances.

“I don’t think anybody is going to think there’s anything too real to it,” Watson says. “It’s just a flight of fancy. We know a fact — that they went into the crowd and had a night out — and we don’t know any more than that.”

Watson encountered a problem in her portrayal of the Queen Mother: there was very little sound or vision of the Queen Mother speaking, despite oodles of images. And what Watson did hear wasn’t pleasing.

“We had to tone it down to be honest because her accent is so extreme,” she says. “Back then in 1945, it really was extreme and if you did do it as that, it would be laughable.”

Watson says the accent was “very plummy but it has an extra element that’s just bizarre, a sort of nasality to it. There’s something extra. I don’t know what it is.”

Historical fidelity isn’t the point of A Royal Night Out. Everett is a touch too charismatic as ­George, but London on VE Day certainly looks the part. With its Roman Holiday allusions, the film is an entertainment and enjoyably so, Watson says.

“It was really fun, actually,” she says. “Taking on that level of poshness and that accent and that level of high status, it’s like wearing a mask.

“And it was an immense amount of fun to do with Rupert,” she adds.

“I’ve worked with him before and he’s truly a fabulous, scurrilous, entertaining, storytelling, crazy guy. We had a really good laugh.”

A Royal Night Out also shows Watson with a twinkle in her eye in a neat comic performance some way from the heavy dramatic turns for which she became known, in films such as Breaking the Waves, Punch-Drunk Love, Red Dragon and Angela’s Ashes. Recently, the actress appears to be mixing it up a little across genres, appearing in The Theory of Everything, Testament of Youth, The Book Thief and the coming action adventure, Everest.

“It’s nice to dip in and do something light and fun occasionally,” she says. “I’ll tell you what it is. I’m trying to stay home and take jobs that only take me a short distance away for a short space of time and be home. So my first question is: Where? OK, how long? Two weeks, OK!”

A Royal Night Out was a week’s work at Chatsworth and Belvoir Castle.

Watson says she felt “very secure” with the role, knowing what to do with it and how to play it. “It was nice for me to have my foot in that comedic arena, playing it not laugh-out-loud funny but it’s tongue in cheek, as it were, and it’s nice for me to be in that realm because I’m known for doing heavy shit generally.”

And it was wise to claim your OBE for services to drama before the film released? (Prince Charles invested Watson last Friday.)

Watson laughs. “Yes, it was!”

A Royal Night Out is in cinemas nationally.