Don’t believe The Pursuit of Love – not all aristocrats are bigots, buffoons and bounders
Are the English upper classes an absurd alien race? The makers of The Pursuit of Love – and many more TV dramas – certainly seem to think so
Lily James as Linda in The Pursuit of Love
Credit: BBC
Emily Mortimer’s production of The Pursuit of Love presented her with an interesting conundrum. She was not just bringing the eccentric aristocracy to the screen, she was adapting them from Nancy Mitford’s adaptation, so she was already two steps away. A series such as The Crown is easier to dissect since it is the fictionalisation of real life people – it makes no attempt at reality at all, but does the unforgivable thing of creating cooked up situations for real people to the point that a large number of viewers – and even documentary makers - believe it to be true.