A modern makeover for costume dramas

Bridgerton - a costume drama is a “narrative of matrimony and money, of honour and deceit, of love and strategy, of aristocracy and nouveaux riches, with handsome mansions, beautiful dresses and diamond tiaras worn with ostrich feathers”. Netflix

John GapperContributor

Jan 27, 2021 – 8.30am

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Riding her horse through a London park in 1813, Daphne Bridgerton, heroine of the Netflix series Bridgerton, turns to her brother, Anthony, and shares her woes. Her complaint echoes the predicament that confronts many heroines of costume dramas, from Elizabeth Bennet in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (published that year) to Lady Mary Crawley in Downton Abbey.

“You have no idea what it is to be a woman, what it might feel like to have one’s entire life reduced to a single moment. This is all I have been raised for. This is all I am. I have no other value. If I am unable to find a husband, I shall be worthless,” Daphne tells Lord Bridgerton. She soon hatches a plot with a duke who is a friend of his — a handsome and haughty one, naturally — and the intrigue begins.

Financial Times