Pomp and romps: how Bridgerton became the most talked about show on TV

‘It sees the Regency period through American eyes’

Lanre Bakare

Christmas 1995 was one to forget. I was ill and mostly confined to the sofa, trying to keep down mince pies as my big sister made her way through the VHS release of Andrew Davies’ Pride and Prejudice. A few years earlier, I had been subjected to the Julian Amyes version of Jane Eyre starring Timothy Dalton, but at least that was weirdly gothic and unintentionally hilarious; this was another level.

Pemberley, Mr Bingley, Jennifer Ehle with her bonnet, Colin Firth in a pond. For an 11-year-old who liked WWF and Rage Against the Machine, it was like water torture. The experience put me off costume dramas and Austen for years. Any sign of buttoned-down, stiff-upper-lip, no-sex-we’re-British Regency nonsense was anathema to me.

Then, 25 years later, . Unapologetically daft, it luxuriates in playing with the form and conventions of costume dramas, instilling them with modern storytelling chops and the sort of overblown production I last saw in . It sees the Regency period through American eyes, highlighting the things that people like most about British aristocratic