BBC hopes for less drama over Queen doc

The infamous BBC series about the Queen finally airs tonight - and the corporation has been careful not to put out any advance copies. The last time they tried giving the press a taste of what they had, all hell broke loose. What appeared to be a newsworthy scene of the Queen walking out of a photoshoot in a huff turned out to be an editing trick.

The fallout has been epic. Two senior BBC personnel lost their jobs while at RDF Media, the independent production company responsible, not only did the executive producer Stephen Lambert walk the plank, but the company had to issue a profits warning as a result of a temporary freeze by the BBC and ITV on commissions.

An independent report ordered by the BBC found that no one "consciously set out to defame or misrepresent the Queen in the tape" - but it also stated that "RDF edited the footage of the Queen in a cavalier fashion". As a result, both Peter Fincham, Controller of BBC1, and Jane Fletcher, his head of press relations, resigned.

To remove the jinx, the series title A Year with the Queen has been changed to Monarchy - The Royal Family at Work. Tonight's first episode focuses on the preparations for the Queen's state visit to the United States in May this year - and includes the notorious photoshoot with Annie Leibovitz, the photographer best known for her celebrity portraits in Vanity Fair magazine.

Leibovitz said recently that the Queen could be "a little feisty" but that it was not unusual for people to find being photographed uncomfortable. "I think the BBC missed the whole point. They had an interesting piece to film without having to go to the extreme of making it up so it looks as though she's walking out," she said.