It is a truth universally acknowledged that I’m suddenly addicted to period dramas

Whatever you do, don’t watch the new Jane Austen documentary on the ABC. It’s called Jane Austen: Rise of a Genius and it’s far too good, leaving you with a hunger for Austen which cannot easily be satisfied.

And so you find yourself rewatching the film of Sense and Sensibility, the one with Hugh Grant and Emma Thompson, and then one thing leads to another and you’ve watched every available Austen, and so you find yourself subscribing to BritBox, and soon life has no meaning unless you are hunched in front of the set watching Dame Judy Dench in a bonnet and Julia Sawalha in a hooped skirt.

Emma Thompson in 1995’s Sense and Sensibility. If there’s a bonnet in it, I’m watching.

I’ve heard heroin addicts talk about how it all started. An innocent tug on an acquaintance’s “marijuana cigarette” and, three weeks later, they are sprawled in a Kings Cross gutter with no money and a needle in their arm. Friends, that is my story. It all begins with a moment of appreciation for Hugh Grant’s tousled hair and ends with a wayward addict adrift in a sea of Trollope.

In the last fortnight, I’ve watched at least 11 period dramas – all of Austen, then two TV versions of Tom Jones (the older version better than the later), Trollope’s The Way We Live Now (excellent, by the way), Cranford, Return to Cranford, and Yet More Cranford. This last one doesn’t exist yet, but surely I can dream?

Strangely, I used to act superior about “bonnet dramas”. I spent most of the 1990s falling asleep in front of them. If a drama featured headwear affixed under the chin with a ribbon, I found my eyes fluttering closed.

Now, I’m watching so many period dramas that they blur in my memory. No, matter. In a way, they are all the same. They all star Imelda Staunton, Brenda Blethyn, Tom Hollander and Michael Gambon. If one of the characters isn’t in it for a scene or two, one assumes the actor is up the road filming The Barchester Chronicles.

Colin Firth as Mr Darcy and Jennifer Ehle as Elizabeth Bennett in Pride and Prejudice.

Andrew Davies is always the writer, which means he’s skilled at including all the classic tropes. They all have a cad, a spirited heroine, an interfering aunt, and a scene in which someone is pushed into a pond, puddle, river, moat or lake. There’s a puppet show or magic performance, featuring either Tim Curry or Alexei Sayle. The sprawling country house, I’m pretty sure, is always the same. Presumably, the BBC bought it in 1952 and films everything there. If it’s Anna Karenina, they’ll ship in some scythes and a steaming samovar.

Of course, much like the heroin addict, the period drama compulsion soon dominates your life. When every evening is spent in Georgian England, it’s hard for every breakfast not to follow.

“Your father only had daughters,” I found myself observing to Jocasta the other morning as I hoed into my usual breakfast of a boar’s head and kippers.

“Don’t trouble me with such vexing matters,” she responded, in her usual spirited way, as she idly deboned a freshly shot pheasant. “I can no longer countenance such observations.”

I replied quietly, “I’m sure no malice was intended,” before waving my hand towards her end of the table.

Jocasta peered at me from beneath the bonnet she’s taken to wearing. “Am I led to understand”, she asked, “that you wish to be passed the salt?”

I nodded. “It is possible I do.”

“Really? With kippers?” Jocasta sighed. “One half of the world cannot understand the pleasures of the other.”

I adjusted my britches. “All the privilege I claim for my own sex (it is not a very enviable one: you need not covet it) is that we love salt the longest, when all medical advice hopes we’ll stop.”

At that point, Jocasta advised me to leave the table: “You have delighted us long enough.”

At night, of course, we play cards and dance along to the harpsichord we’ve recently purchased. There’s no one able to play the instrument, but our dog Clancy bangs away as best he can. We are also liberal with our candles, consuming up to two each evening.

Then it’s back to our viewing. We toggle between BritBox, Stan and Netflix. We bounce from 1792 to 1843. We cheer when Brian Blessed gives a performance even more gloriously over-the-top than his last. And we blush when episode 4 of Tom Jones promises “strong sex scenes”, and wonder if that means someone’s going to remove their bonnet.

All in all, I now find that I’m the happiest and most fortunate of men, for – finally – I have developed wisdom befitting my age. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a retired man in possession of a spare $13.99 a month must be in want of a new streamer subscription.

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