QUEEN Victoria: a little old lady, spherical in shape, dressed in black, perpetually grumpy. Right? Historian Lucy Worsley wants to make you think again.

Meet a complex, contradictory woman, who had a traumatic childhood, who loved dancing, who suffered calamity and bereavement, before coming out the other side as an eccentric, powerful and really rather magnificent old lady.

On Tuesday, historian Lucy Worsley gives an illustrated talk in York which takes the audience into the life, the palaces, and the rich colourful age of this woman who ruled a quarter of the globe.

Worsley was Major Projects and Research Manager for Glasgow Museums before becoming Chief Curator at Historic Royal Palaces, the independent charity responsible for maintaining the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Kensington Palace State Apartments, the Banqueting House in Whitehall and Kew Palace in Kew Gardens. She oversaw the £12 million refurbishment of the Kensington Palace state apartments and gardens.

In 2005 she was elected a senior research fellow at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London; she was also appointed visiting professor at Kingston University.

In 2016, Worsley presented the three-part documentary Empire of the Tsars: Romanov Russia with Lucy Worsley in January and Lucy Worsley: Mozart's London Odyssey in June. She filmed A Very British History for BBC Four and she presented and appeared in dramatized accounts of the three-part BBC series Six Wives with Lucy Worsley. Lucy also presented a three-part series entitled British History's Biggest Fibs with Lucy Worsley, debunking historical views of the Wars of the Roses, the Glorious Revolution and the British occupation of India.

n Lucy Worsley: Queen Victoria, Grand Opera House, York, Tuesday, September 18, 7.30pm. Tickets from £13 on 0844 871 3024 or online at www.atgtickets.com/york