Cleary

Cleary is one of the maids working below stairs in the royal household, part of the ensemble of servants whose labour keeps Buckingham Palace running while the Queen's story unfolds above them. She goes about her duties quietly, alert to the rhythms and hierarchies of palace life, an observer more than a mover of events.

Victoria is at its best when it remembers the staff are people too, not just uniforms passing through corridors, and Cleary is part of that texture. Tilly Steele plays her with an unfussy naturalism, giving the character a lived-in presence that makes the servants' world feel as real and consequential as the one upstairs.