The first episode of Amazon Prime's The Pursuit of Love finds our aristocratic heroine, Linda Radlett (a remorselessly hyper-animated Lily James) naked and pregnant, sunning herself on the roof of her London residence with her French bulldog, Plon-Plon. And demonstrating why the upper class gets to play by its own rules: old money, a sense of entitlement centuries in the making and enough town and country establishments to get up to no good in without being disturbed.
Still, it's 1941. When Linda goes to recover from sunbathing by having a little lie-down the Blitz hits. Cut to her sensible cousin, Fanny, frantically searching until she spies Linda (and the unflappable Plon-Plon) perched on some rubble. "The bed simply went through the floor and Plon-Plon and I went on it," beams Linda. "Perfectly comfortable."
Born to expect a soft landing. Cut to Linda at 17, trapped in the Radlett's country pile. Her "Farve", also known as Uncle Matthew, refuses to educate his daughters, hunts them on horseback and is implacably opposed to "abroad". "Church, stables, tennis court – why would they ever want to leave?" Linda is not having it. Spoiler alert: soon she ditches ill-advised husband number one – he loves Hitler - and their small daughter for ill-advised husband number two, a communist. Despite Linda's unconvincing attempts to make herself useful in the fight against fascism, he dumps her. No worries. Rich Frenchman (political leanings unclear) to the rescue. Fabrice joins the Resistance, leaving Linda to loll about on the roof.
Period dramedy as per usual? No. The soundtrack is unapologetically rock and roll. Helpful captions pop up. Actress Emily Mortimer, who adapted this classic Nancy Mitford novel for the BBC, also directs and plays Fanny's runaway mother, known as The Bolter. That's commitment.
But even Mortimer had her doubts about the project. "Does the world need another piece of television about posh people in country houses?" she has wondered. Possibly not. But we're talking about the eternally startling Mitfords. As a small child, Mortimer met Jessica Mitford, a family friend, who ran off to be a muckraking journalist in America. The real challenge: any fiction struggles to keep up with the frankly barking exploits of the family upon which it is based. I once interviewed Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, the youngest and least outrageous in a family where swastikas jostled for space with the hammer and sickle. Her sister Unity went off to Germany to be a handmaiden of the Third Reich and signed her letters, "Heil Hitler. Love, Bobo." Diana – aka Honks - married British fascist Oswald Mosley and remained an unrepentant Nazi. Debo got on with everyone and guarded the tattered family honour. "He disapproves in a governessy way of the idea of my father hunting my sisters with his bloodhounds for fun. What else would he have done it for?" she wrote, when a reviewer attacked a series based on another semi-autobiographical Nancy Mitford novel, Love in a Cold Climate. "Oh dear, freaks and lunatics," Debo wrote. "Well, never mind."
