Bridgerton Review – Netflix’s Answer to Downton Abbey Is a Delicious Dish
Absurd and clichéd, this tale of Regency-era intrigue – with Julie Andrews channelling Georgian Gossip Girl – nevertheless leaves you wanting more
it’s impossible – no, absolutely, and for the good of humanity, impossible – that there are people out there who aspire to write like Julian Fellowes. It’s simply impossible. But. Now Bridgerton (Netflix) has arrived, suddenly thrust into our lives, and as the minutes, hours and eight episodes of this new period drama tick by, that thought becomes inevitable.
For Bridgerton is set in 1813 London, about the Regency-era rivalry between the aristocratic Bridgerton family and the aristocratic Featherington family, each of which wants to be seen as the most aristocratic of aristocratic families and dominate much of Regency-era London’s high society. By the way, we are in the Regency and London. I, like the show’s writers, want to make this clear (despite extensive filming in Bath).
Those writers – most importantly Chris Van Dusen, who (is “credited” the right word?) created the series based on the romance novels by Julia Quinn, a devoted Jane Austen fan – show every sign of having watched too many Downton Abbey episodes. Like learning too many facts before an exam and it pushes everything else out of your mind, the final fateful hour of the Crawleys’ company drains the writers of everything they knew about dialogue, language and character, leaving them with only the echoes of Fellowes – as they might say – ringing in their ears.
How can we explain the profusion of lines that look English, sound English but are not English, and are certainly not English when she speaks them? Lines like: “They say that of all the bitches dead or alive, a woman who scribbles is the biggest bitch!” And: “But! As we all know, the brighter a lady shines, the faster she can burn!” Not if you haven’t already established that she’s glowing as a result of the fires we all are! Sentences like: “They’re all trying to avoid the horrible status known as the Bachelorette.” By then, I’d already leaned heavily towards the status known as the Heavy Drinker. Because when nothing matters, nothing matters – you know?
Anyway. Let’s get back to the plot. It’s nonsense. Everyone with daughters is preparing them to be presented to Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) at court. Lady Featherington (Polly Walker, who’s still a bomb, a real bomb) is strapping her daughters Penelope (Nicola Coughlan of Derry Girls), Prudence (Bessie Carter) and Philippa (Harriet Cains) into corsets and no doubt inspiring a thousand fanfics as she goes. The widowed Countess Bridgerton (Ruth Gemmell) is doing the same for her brood. Her hopes of promotion are pinned on the fragile Daphne (Phoebe Dynevor), and at first it seems like she’s betting on the horse wearing the right corset. Prudence faints before the Queen (“I have not escaped the state of the Unsightly Crumples at the Feet of the Royal Personage” she cries as she falls. No, she hasn’t. I can’t speak for the first draft, though) but a beaming Daphne is anointed with a kiss. “Perfect, my dear,” says the Queen. “And in the condition of The Vertical!” No, again, not the second season. But…
Golda Rosheuvel in Bridgerton
Fun and circumstance: why Netflix’s Bridgerton is our cup of tea this year
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Then it’s all down to cannabis for everyone. Daphne’s eldest brother, Anthony (Jonathan Bailey), the Deputy Lord Bridgerton since his father’s death and no one in American television seems sure how to inherit, is overzealous in defending her and turning down all suitors except one man who is particularly determined to make Mr Collins look like Mr Darcy. Her untouchable status becomes the main feature of a new, salacious news bulletin written by “Lady Whistledown” (Julie Andrews in a witty voiceover, bringing a touch of Georgian Gossip Girl to the whole thing – and let the record show that if anyone wants to commit fully to such an endeavour, I’m totally here for it).
Lady W’s other favourite subject is the new arrival to the Featherington household; the girls’ cousin Marina, who overshadows the trio in every way and whose star rises as fast as Daphne’s falls but is hiding a growing secret of her own. Dum-dum-daaah!
Throw in the swaggering Duke of Hastings, a lover
