BRIDGERTON
NETFLIX
If memory serves (and it doesn’t, so I checked!) the first episode of the previous (ie, second) season of Netflix’s mega-hit Bridgerton was Peak Bridgerton.
Each drop-dead-gorgeous frock and OTT ball with a gloriously choreographed minuet to Madonna’s Material Girl acknowledged that the faux-Regency potboiler was perfect big-budget ‘guilty pleasure’ viewing for our troubled times.
Add the colour-blind casting, smart scripts and – sigh! – wisteria-draped stately homes, and consuming Bridgerton was like bingeing a box of pastel macarons.
However, if you’ve still not had the pleasure of a show (based on novels by US author Julia Quinn) that features not once but twice in the streamer’s all-time Top Ten English language hits (knee-buckling combined total views of 207,100,000), then let’s get up to speed.
Penelope, played by Derry Girls’ Nicola Coughlan (pictured), is the ‘wallflower’ daughter of Portia, Dowager Baroness Featherington
Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuvel) is on the throne and, invariably, throws a big Debutantes’ ball to kick off ‘The Season’. Here, all those upwardly mobile and/or financially impoverished titled mamas and manipulative social mavens are in a total tizz as they attempt to marry off their daughters/wards. The lady-boss of all the social shenanigans is Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh), who has the Queen’s ear.
The titular Bridgerton family matriarch is widowed Lady Violet (Ruth Gemmell), who has four – handsome! – sons and four – beautiful! – daughters. Meanwhile, their neighbours, the Featheringtons, are in reduced circumstances. After her husband’s death, Portia, Dowager Baroness Featherington, needs to marry off her daughters ASAP.
The beauty will make you wince and the cast sparkle
Her ‘wallflower’ daughter Penelope (Derry Girls’ Nicola Coughlan) was best friends with feisty Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie). However, the end of series two saw Eloise discovering that Penelope was leading a double life… as ‘Lady Whistledown’, whose society gossip column is the talk of the ballrooms. So, let the season three quadrilles begin!
After a winter of wall-to-wall gritty police procedurals, I was all-in for sugar-spun romantic fun.
Yet, as Penelope misses her friend and fosters her longstanding crush on Colin Bridgerton, the tone is muted. Aside from some hot between-the-sheets action starring gaspingly gorgeous Bridgerton newlyweds Anthony and Kate, the season opener is less of a glamorous gallop over the ballroom parquet, more of a wistful waltz.
UK writer Kathryn Flett was happy to binge watch the new season of Bridgerton
The performances sparkle, mind, and the ensemble cast’s collective beauty still makes you wince. So this series will inevitably unfold as another will-they/won’t-they cat-and-mouse chase towards the aisle.
Yup, the road’s bound to be both winding and bumpy, however it’s not the destination that matters here, it’s the journey. Even though the outcome’s inevitable, the opener was – by Bridgerton’s standards, at least –more ladies-who-lunch than a budget-busting banquet.
Yet, arguably, in the two years that have passed since the previous season we are even more in need of a collective binge on TV’s favourite melt-in-the-mouth metaphorical macaron.
Gymnast thriller gets top marks
THE GATHERING
CHANNEL 4
Just like buses, you’ll wait ages for a cracking Liverpool-set drama, then The Responder and The Gathering arrive within minutes of each other. Yes, we’re not short of sweeping shots of the Liver Building.
Produced by the team behind Line Of Duty and Bodyguard, The Gathering stars Warren Brown (Ray Mullen in The Responder, and he’s not even a Scouser!) as the single father of talented teen gymnast, Kelly, whose wrong-side- of-the-tracks lifestyle threatens to derail her inclusion in Team GB.
Gymnast Jess (pictured) is navigating a demanding Tiger Mum and a blossoming romance with a local bad boy
Meanwhile, Kelly’s posh teammate, Jess, is navigating a demanding Tiger Mum and a blossoming romance with – inevitably – a local bad boy. Trust me, this is all far more intriguing than it sounds.
Although writing plausible dialogue and plots for 21st-century youngsters is tricky, Kelly and Jess’s respective worlds both look and feel convincing, while the young cast is fantastic.
Sadie Soverall (recently seen in Saltburn) is compelling as Jess, though the beating heart of the story is Kelly, played by Eva Morgan – already shimmering with charisma, straight out of drama school.
Indeed, the last time I had a similar sense of watching a star-in-waiting it was another Liverpudlian actress by the name of Jodie Comer. You read it here first.
Stephen’s an unlikely hit
Stephen Mangan (pictured) thrives as the frontman for ITV’s ‘reality game show’ The Fortune Hotel
I’m a Stephen Mangan fan but even he may agree he’s an unlikely frontman for an ITV ‘reality game show’. Yet Mangan is great corralling The Fortune Hotel’s (Mon-Thu, ITV1) pairs as they swap suitcases in pursuit of £250k.
Only in its producers’ dreams is this a place where The Traitors meets The White Lotus, but it’s fun and well cast (with divisive ‘characters’).
While writing last week’s review, I cut a line saying how good it was to see the ever-watchable Bernard Hill in The Responder. Hill’s Yosser Hughes in Boys From The Blackstuff was one of British TV’s most memorable, resonant characters. RIP, sir – you’re already much missed.
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