Viewers of ITV’s lavish period drama Victoria might suspect that a fair bit of time, money and effort has been thrown into the production.

But they might be surprised to learn that producers spent an incredible three weeks transforming leading star Jenna Coleman’s deep brown eyes into bright blue ones for her role as the monarch.

Jenna Coleman
Jenna Coleman has deep, brown eyes… but Queen Victoria had blue eyes (Jonathan Short / AP/PA Images)

The programme’s producer Damien Timmer revealed all, telling Radio Times that a pair of blue contact lenses Jenna had worn were just too obvious for the series, which is set in the mid-1800s.

“Jenna has brown eyes, and Queen Victoria famously had blue eyes,” he said.

He went on to reveal that the actress had worn lenses to sort out this image issue, but that it was at the official press screening that an even bigger problem became apparent.

Jenna Coleman
Jenna Coleman in Victoria with blue eyes (ITV)

Damien explained: “Despite everyone’s best efforts in post-production, the contact lenses were really obvious and strange – you could see these big plastic rims around her eyes.”

“It cost a lot of money and everyone was very cross with me,” he added, as he spent the next three weeks going through every single episode editing the edges of the contacts so as to properly disguise them.