Bridgerton : How Accurate is it about Sex, Race, Class in the Regency Period.

 

Bridgerton, Netflix’s hit of the season, which is adapted from the historical fantasy novels of Julia Quinn, plays fast and loose with history. It opens in 1813, the year in which Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice was published, Napoleonic war raged in Europe and London’s Westminster Bridge was illuminated by the world’s first public gas company.
 
Bridgerton is far from an accurate portrayal of the historical Regency period in which it is set – named for the transfer of power from the incapacitated King George III to his son George IV in 1811 until the king’s death in 1820. However, it does get some things right.
 
In the show, London’s social set are abuzz with gossip provided by the anonymous column of Lady Whistledown. The columnist’s salacious writing is in step with the time: gossip newspapers circulated in Regency London, detailing the exploits and scandals of the “Bon Ton”, or fashionable elite, during “the season”. As Bridgerton’s historical consultant Hannah Grieg has detailed, this was the six months each year during which the daughters of Britain’s richest families would be presented at court, and advantageous marriages arranged.
 
Some have expressed surprise at Bridgerton’s depiction of sex on screen. But, while Daphne Bridgerton’s (Phoebe Dynevor) extensive outdoor copulation against a backdrop of triumphant baroque architecture may not have been every new bride’s experience, sex was everywhere in Georgian England. For two shillings, tourists in London could purchase Harris’ List of Covent Garden Ladies, a catalogue of sex workers in the city that later informed the show Harlots.
 
Scandalous elopements, abductions and unfaithful spouses within the upper classes were all fodder for the gossip columns. The adultery trials of aristocratic women proved particularly popular, among them Seymour Fleming, known as Lady Worsley in 1782, and Lady Anne Foley in 1786.
 
Another thing Bridgerton has received attention for its clumsy handling of issues of race in the Regency period. The show is one of several recent costume dramas looking to make the historical presence of people of colour in Regency England visible.
 
Amma Asante’s 2013 Belle, based on the life of mixed-race aristocrat Dido Elizabeth Belle (1761-1804), sets its action in the shadow of the historical Zong case. The case centred on a fraudulent insurance claim in which over 130 enslaved individuals were murdered at sea.
 
And in 2019, ITV’s Sanditon adapted Jane Austen’s unfinished novel to give voice to her only Black character, Miss Lambe, an heiress who travels from the Caribbean to the English coast.
 
The showrunners of Bridgerton looked to incorporate similar histories. Building on suggestions that the real Queen Charlotte may have been mixed-race, the show casts her as a powerful Black woman and acting head of the state (her son, the Prince Regent, makes no appearance). Elsewhere the Duke of Hastings (Regé-Jean Page) spars with his friend Will Mondrich (Martins Imhangbe), a character who evokes real-life 19th-century boxers Thomas Molineaux and Bill Richmond.
 
While the decision to introduce racial diversity to the story has been lauded by many, including the novels’ author, Julia Quinn, Bridgerton has faced strong criticism from scholars and viewers alike.
 
In particular, historians including Patricia A Matthew and Kerry Sinanan have highlighted the show’s failure to deal fully with the history of slavery. From its sugary palette to the confectionery adorning its tables, Bridgerton presents a historical material culture built on the exploitation of enslaved peoples without acknowledging the system that maintained the same lavish lifestyle – a decision made all the more troubling given its Black characters are depicted similarly partaking of these riches.
 
Bridgerton’s visual culture is no less implicated. Across its luscious sets, paintings copied from real-life artworks give depth and legitimacy to the Regency world created onscreen. A group portrait of the Bridgerton brothers, hung in the stairwell of Bridgerton house and to which the camera returns throughout the series, replicates Sir Joshua Reynolds’ 1760s depiction of the British politician Henry Fane and his friends. In it, Fane is seated with a greyhound. Either side of him are the architect Inigo Jones and Charles Blair, a Jamaican plantation owner whose wealth depended on slavery.
 
Elsewhere, the show speaks to modern feminist sensibilities. When Eloise Bridgerton (Claudia Jessie) attends a royal art exhibit at the newly refurbished Somerset House, she looks in dismay at a painting of nude female figures. In remarks that recall the Guerrilla Girls’ 1989 poster campaign for fairer representation of women at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, she exclaims: “It was done by a man who sees a woman as nothing more than a decorative object. They’re like human vases.”
 
But Bridgerton’s most notable innovation is the harnessing of that most Regency of spaces – social media. (Like the salons of the Bon Ton, participants congregate for conversation, gossip and to present their best selves.)
 
Of course, earlier costume dramas regularly find themselves re-purposed on such platforms. Polls, for example, often pitch Colin Firth against Matthew Macfayden to establish the “best” Mr Darcy. This can sometimes backfire. In 2019, Sanditon faced criticism after its official hashtag included a pineapple emoji (a reference to the storyline in which Georgiana Lambe is likened to the fruit and taunted for her “exoticism”). However, Bridgerton was forged using these tools.
 
The show’s official Twitter account began to introduce characters before the series aired, expanding the spaces of early 19th-century London into the 21st. It takes up familiar memes to recalibrate the hierarchies of Regency society, inviting viewers to select their friends from among Bridgerton’s characters. In this way, the gossip of Lady Whistledown’s pamphlet has leaped from the page and into our hands, changing forever the landscape of costume drama in the digital age.
 
Bridgerton: what the show gets right about sex, gossip and race in Regency London. By  Madeleine Pelling. The Conversation , January 15, 2021.

Bridgerton, Netflix’s new eight-part period drama miniseries, launched on Christmas day, has already achieved the No. 1 spot overall in more than 75 countries.

 The show is inspired by the romance novel series by American author Julia Quinn set in early 19th-century England. In the hands of executive producer Shonda Rhimes, the showrunner behind the blockbuster TV series Grey’s Anatomy, and collaborator and creator Chris van Dusen, Bridgerton pushes the envelope in depictions of race, gender and questions of power and sexual consent.

 The series tells the story of the courtship and marriage of Daphne Bridgerton and Simon Basset, Duke of Hastings, and the impact of their relationship on the family, friends, gossipmongers and well-wishers that swirl around them.

 Black actors appear in leading roles in Rhimes’s Bridgerton, including Regé-Jean Page as the Duke of Hastings, and Golda Rosheuvel as the Queen of England.

The show has ignited discussion about British Royals’ possible African ancestry, and at the same time, the plotlines ignore or obscure the evils of colonialism, poverty and racism. All of these were rife in this historical time period, and continue to blight our own era, as I chronicle in my book, The Regency Years, During Which Jane Austen Writes, Napoleon Fights, Byron Makes Love, and Britain Becomes Modern.

 The result is that Bridgerton is an escapist and deeply seductive fantasy (some Black commentators suggest one that particularly white people will love) of a society that combines elegance and passion with racial equality. This is the case even while the show with its inclusive approach to casting suggests new ways to challenge Eurocentric stories or who accesses the resources and markets associated with them.

 The series doesn’t tell us a great deal about what life was really like in England in 1813, the year the series is set, but is rather a fairy-tale that on some levels challenges perceptions of race, gender and sexuality. Bridgerton is part frothy romance, part call to action.

 Bridgerton is set in 1813, thus placing it in the historical epoch known as the Regency, which extends from February 1811 to January 1820. It is perhaps the most extraordinary decade in all of British history, and it marks the dawn of the modern world.

 The term “Regency” often calls to mind a certain style of British furniture, art, architecture and fashion. But Regency is originally a political term used to describe when a person was appointed to administer the affairs of the country during the minority, absence or incapacity of the sovereign. There have been scores of regencies in monarchies globally. England has had more than a dozen.

 Its most famous Regency, though, and the backdrop for Bridgerton, began when madness had finally cast King George III into darkness, clearing the way for the Regency of his dissolute eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, who ruled Britain as Prince Regent until George III died and the Regent became King George IV.

 For England, this era witnessed major events such as the War of 1812, the Luddite Riots and the Peterloo Massacre, during which 11 people were killed in a Manchester demonstration where protesters demanded political reform and the right to vote.

 Most decisively, there was the British and allied victory over Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815.

 It was also a time of artistic and literary flourishing: Jane Austen published all six of her novels of courtship and romance in the Regency, including Pride and Prejudice, which appeared in 1813.

 In its dreams of freedom, its embrace of consumerism and celebrity culture, its mass protests in support of social justice and its complex response to the burgeoning pace of scientific and technological advance, the Regency signals both a decisive break from the past and the onset of the desiring, democratic, commercial, secular, opportunistic society that is for the first time recognizably our own.

 Much of the plot of Bridgerton is indebted to the preoccupations, pressures and privileges of Regency aristocratic society.

Duels were common and sometimes deadly. People from across the social classes flocked to the theatre. There was a fixation with dress and appearance. Gambling was a mania. Sports played a leading role in the lives of many women and men.

 In Bridgerton, the Duke of Hastings spars frequently with Will Mondrich, a Black boxer and confidante of the Duke’s, who is perhaps modelled on Thomas Molyneaux, a freed black slave from America, and a formidable Regency prizefighter.

 Bigotry was deeply ingrained in the Regency, and fuelled the violence and colonial greed of Britain’s so-called “civilizing mission” across the globe.
 
In 1807, Britain declared the slave trade illegal, and during the Regency abolitionists like William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson worked tirelessly to ensure that every effort was made to enforce the new legislation, and that support grew for the abolition of slavery itself, which finally became law in 1833.
 
The most important Black writer of the Regency was Jamaican-born Robert Wedderburn, the illegitimate son of Rosanna, an African-born slave, and James Wedderburn.
 
In the midst of government crackdowns on the impoverished and disenfranchised, Wedderburn declared in 1817 that “The earth was given to the children of men, making no difference for colour or character.”
 
Sexuality was frequently on display in the Regency. The period marked the brazen culmination of the 18th-century tradition of libertinism, and was the last great huzzah for rakes — men who had sexual relationships with a lot of women — before the sobering and much stricter mores of the Victorian era.
 
Bridgerton frames sexual conflict in ways that reflect the immense pressure on aristocratic women to remain chaste, a burden brought clearly into view in the Regency era thanks in large part to authors like Austen and Mary Shelley.
 
Bridgerton’s most controversial scene evokes highly contemporary questions. Daphne and her new husband, the Duke of Hastings, engage in non-consensual sex, with Daphne as the aggressor.
 
Before their marriage, the Duke has told Daphne he cannot have children. She soon learns that he can, but just will not. Determined to become pregnant, she retaliates. In the book, the Duke is drunk during sex, in the Netflix series he is not.
 
Neither the novel nor the film addresses the implications of Daphne’s actions directly. But the issue of consent is foregrounded in both instances.
 
Canadian writer Sharon Bala notes that “by rendering a more nuanced version of events than pop culture usually offers, Bridgerton forces an important conversation about the grey zone in which so many real-life encounters exists.”
 
At a time when Meghan Markle has been driven to California after being bombarded in 2019 with 5,000 racist and abusive tweets in two months, and the fallout from #MeToo disclosures and prosecutions still preoccupies our society, Bridgerton raises pointed questions about who we want to be now.
 
Netflix’s ‘Bridgerton’: A romanticized portrayal of Britain at the dawn of modernity. By Robert Morrison. The Conversation , January 11, 2021.

Although Netflix’s Bridgerton has actively resisted the label of historical accuracy in favor of a fantasy approach to the era, it is still worth uncovering which scenes, events, and references represent a more creative interpretation to history and which are references to real events.
 
Dr. Hannah Greig, the historical advisor to the series, describes Bridgerton as “a combination of a historical truth – which is to say that the past is more diverse than we tend to see on screen, and we tend to accept in our popular imagination. But it’s also a fictionalising, asking what history might look like under certain different circumstances.” This approach is in keeping with the novel series the show is based on which blends the Regency Era with modern romantic fantasies. Here’s a list of some of the plots where alternate history may or may not be a factor.
 
How Did Simon and Lady Danbury Acquire Their Wealth?
 
Viewers throughout the episodes see several flashbacks to Simon’s father (Richard Pepple) wearing opulent clothes and overseeing what was likely a huge business empire. Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh) is clearly closely connected to Queen Charlotte (Golda Rosheuve) and may have obtained additional wealth via marriage. Simon (Regé-Jean Page) in Episodes 5 and 6 is seen managing a large estate with tenant farmers.
 
The series evades the question of how this wealth came to be and for a good reason. During the Regency era, most of the real-life Ton acquired their wealth through direct or indirect involvement in slavery or colonialism. Although the British officially banned the international slave trade in 1807, this ban did not result in immediate divestment from the economic activity that was powered by slave or colonial labor. British landowners still exported cotton, sugar, coffee, wood, and metals from their overseas properties or were involved in firms manufacturing consumer goods out of those raw materials. Anyone involved in the shipping trade pre-1807 still made money off of transporting slaves from Africa to the Caribbean and America.
 
For those who believe there is no precedent in pop culture to discussing these issues, the novel Mansfield Park includes some discussion about Regency-era wealth generated from slavery but some of the adaptations cut or heavily downplay it. Ned Despard opposing expanded exploitation by the Honduran mahogany plantation owners is covered extensively in Poldark Season 5.
 
Based on the lack of discussion, the audience can assume any number of things about where their wealth comes from. Simon and Lady Danbury could own property in Africa and the Caribbean and produce valuable raw materials by salaried laborers. This is not unheard of in the era because American laws designed to keep Black and mixed race people from owning property did not exist in these UK colonies. An argument can be made that Simon’s wealth is purely from collecting rent from his tenants and selling the agricultural products produced. It’s also possible long term investments in various industries are paying per annum. The possibilities are endless in this fantasy world.
 
Prince Friedrich
 
So much of the discourse around the series has revolved around Queen Charlotte’s African ancestry, but there hasn’t been as much discussion around Prince Friedrich. Prince Fredrich is introduced in Episode 3 as the Queen’s nephew searching for a princess among the Ton. There was a Prince Frederich Wilhelm Ludwig of Prussia, but in real life, he was the son of her niece Princess Fredericka of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
In a series already skewed towards showing the marriage market for the elite families of Regency society, it makes sense for the especially politically ambitious Dukes and Duchesses to desire to be connected by marriage to the Queen. Daphne (Phoebe Dyvenor) potentially blocking the path of the social climbers makes for good drama and gossip from Lady Whistledown even if it didn’t quite happen that way in history.

 
Regency Smoking Habits & What is Snuff?
 
The miniseries featured tobacco use in a way not typically seen in other early 19th Century period dramas. Lady Danbury and other women were seen smoking.  Quite a few fans were confused about Queen Charlotte’s penchant for sniffing something up her nose while cuddling her slightly smaller than at the time pomeranian. She was using snuff, dried tobacco, and not cocaine as some folks mistakenly posted on Twitter. During the Regency Era, clay pipes and cigars fell out of fashion for public consumption due to the unpleasant smell. Snuff was extremely popular among the real Ton as there was no traceable odor to other people. Smoking adds a dramatic effect to any situation where a character feels stressed out but pipes and cigars, in reality, maybe likely only to be used where others can’t see.
 
Simon and Daphne’s Visit to the Gardens
 
The Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens actually existed in Regency London. They were open to everyone who could afford the entrance fee, but quickly became a gathering place for the well to do or anyone interested in social climbing. The location still exists today as a public park in London but the entertainment function ended in 1859. There are references to Vauxhall in the novel and screen adaptations of Vanity Fair and Poldark Season 4 but Bridgerton’s recreation is far more elaborate. The light display show is a fictionalized example of what Regency visitors would have encountered. Singers, musicians, circus acts, and more regularly appeared to entertain guests in the gardens. Traces of those elements remain today in public fairs and amusement parks today.
 
Regency-Era Gambling
 
Bridgerton has two plotlines involving gambling. Lady Danbury’s married women’s party featured whist which was indeed a popular Regency Era card game and one where the Ton was likely to lose some of their precious financial stability. Lord Featherington’s (Ben Miller) gambling on Will Mondrich’s (Martins Imhangbe) fights was a little bit more based on an alternate reality. There’s little evidence that Bill Richmond, the real-life boxer the character is inspired by was involved in fixing fights as the racism of the time already made him prone to false allegations of cheating. This isn’t to say Regency era boxers didn’t attempt to win or lose unethically as the sport didn’t gain a regulatory body until 1838, but the big match in Episode 8 is more about exposing the bad decisions of Lord Featherington in an epic fashion than any real commentary about the era. History buffs who are recoiling from Bridgerton taking so many historical liberties should take heart. Fans of the books as well as new viewers are actively researching more about the Regency Era as a result. They’re well aware the show is not attempting to be the authority on history.

 
The Real History Behind Bridgerton. By Amanda-Rae Prescott. Den of Geeks,  December 29, 2020

Regency romance adaptation Bridgerton, set inside the lavish world of Georgian high society, has arrived on Netflix and is sure to charm viewers this Christmas. But you should expect more than just glitz from the juicy period drama. On a recent episode of the HistoryExtra podcast, we caught up with Dr Hannah Greig, historian of the Beau Monde and etiquette advisor to the series, to find out how viewer expectations are turned on their head…

 
Think of a Regency-set period drama and you might expect a restrained and genteel affair; tea will be sipped and gossip might be whispered. Viewers may be invited to peer into panelled parlours lit by flickering candlelight, or an opulent Assembly room to watch a chaste yet highly charged Quadrille.
 
Bridgerton takes this further, promising an on-screen Regency romance that feels made for the modern era. There are many playful and stylised elements; brightly lit settings and bold primary colour palettes, not to mention the string quartet arrangements of chart-topping favourites by Ariana Grande or Shawn Mendes. It is these choices made by creator and showrunner Chris Van Dusen and the team behind the new drama, explains Dr Hannah Greig, that help to translate the modern and ground-breaking nature of Georgian high society for a 21st-century audience. A historian of 18th-century Britain and the Beau Monde, Greig served as Bridgerton’s etiquette advisor and recently appeared on the HistoryExtra podcast to discuss how the show is “a period drama like no other”.
 
The eight-part series is made for Netflix by Chris Van Dusen and Shondaland, and is based on a series of Regency romance novels written since 2000 by Julia Quinn. Set during the reign of the Prince Regent (later George IV), the drama follows a few fictional families of the ‘bon ton’, whose worlds are soon sent reeling by a scandal sheet written by a mysterious ‘Lady Whistledown’ (voiced by Julie Andrews). The families may be drawn from fiction – but how much does the drama otherwise borrow from real history?
 
Welcome to the Ton
 
According to Greig, the aristocrats of 19th-century Britain’s high society would have considered themselves incredibly modern: “They were at the cutting edge of fashion; they were the trendsetters. They had the money to spend, and really were extravagant. They lived life in the fast lane, and we don’t always see that on screen.”
 
Though the families at the centre of Bridgerton are fictional, they are inspired by a real elite who could be considered the ‘celebrities’ of their day, with their vibrant fashions and habits reported in the newspapers. “To see this world made modern, feels in keeping with what it would have felt like to be there at the time,” comments Greig.
 
Showrunner Van Dusen has stated how he imagined a show that reflected today’s society, including “lustful scenes shot from the ‘female gaze’”, and the result is one that inevitably departs from historical reality – thoroughly escapist, fun, and fantastical. But the historical elements on show are in keeping with many true Regency conventions.
 
Take the mothers and aunts: figures who loom large in Bridgerton’s plot and hold court at many of the drama’s sparkling set-pieces. “Bridgerton is the world of the matriarch and that is in keeping with the historical world that I would recognise,” explains Greig. “There were some very powerful hostesses, as we call them historically, who ran the balls and the social season, who were kind of managing the marriage market, introducing eligible young people to other eligible young people and managing the flirtation.”
 

Some mothers were notorious for being extremely ruthless in trying to make a suitable match for their children. One such figure is the Duchess of Gordon, who had four daughters and was featured in many caricatures of the day “trying to push her daughters into the lap of some eligible young duke”. “She was famed for her determination to see her daughters well-married,” says Greig.
The most formidable and influential of these matriarchs is Queen Charlotte (played by Golda Rosheuvel), wife of the incapacitated George III. “She’s the mother of Prince Regent,” explains Greig, “and her court is the pinnacle of society. She did determine who was in and who was out of fashion, to some extent. She didn’t like disreputable women at her court. I don’t know if we’ve seen that kind of court world portrayed before, apart from (the play and film) The Madness of King George.”
 
Scandal and the ultra-rich
 
Lady Whistledown’s pamphlets are eagerly awaited bearers of society news, both in Quinn’s novels and the show, and missives like these really did exist.
 
“These scandal sheets are very much in keeping with how this world of high society was publicised and talked about in the early 19th century,” says Greig. “Newspapers ran columns about what the fashionable world was up to. Magazines ran series that exposed the romances, and adultery and scandals within high society. It was very much part and parcel of the print culture of early 19th-century London.”
 
One slight departure from history, Greig explains, is that in reality, Regency society pamphlets would have gone to a little more trouble to disguise who was being written about, due to the libel laws of the time. “Some might just have printed initials, for example ‘the Duke of H’, instead of the ‘Duke of Hastings’.” But it was still obvious who the subjects were, she says. “There was no point in having these columns if no one knew who you were talking about.”
 
The stakes really were high. Bridgerton is a world of glamour and celebrity, sumptuous balls and grand leisure pursuits. But historically it was also a world that held a huge concentration of power. Just a few hundred families made up this super-rich elite which, compared to the rest of society, held staggeringly disproportionate wealth. “They all had London townhouses, and came to London for six months of the year,” explains Greig. “The reason was parliament; they dominated the political infrastructure. But it was such a small world.”
 

As such, there was always the opportunity for scandal to break a family. “There was a mismatch between what people were allowed to get up to in private and public. If something hit the press, then quite often it would lead to a woman having to remove herself from society to take a period in exile. That was even the case for married women, as well as unmarried women. The press really did have a big power in terms of people’s reputation management in Regency society.”
 
The wider public had some chances to glimpse into the sparking lives of this upper echelon in person, in places such as the pleasure gardens of the day. One memorable scene in Bridgerton takes viewers to the Vauxhall pleasure gardens, which also featured in the most recent BBC adaptation of Poldark. It was, comments Greig, a place “to indulge in overpriced refreshments and take an evening walk amongst lanterns, statues, music and entertainers.”
 
Though the pleasures on offer might seem a little tame to modern audiences, “the ticketed, al fresco pleasure ground was a fantasy world and a temple to modernity,” explains Greig. Georgian visitors were awestruck by fantastical installations in which art mimicked nature: water features that on closer inspection were made of metal; endless garden walks that turned out to be trompe-l’oeil visual deceptions; and thousands of simultaneously-lit lanterns that turned night back into day – of course, with the requisite shadowy corners that promise drama and intrigue.

 Playing with expectations
 
The practices of colour-blind casting (take Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton as just one example) and choosing to foreground BAME characters have been increasingly employed in retellings of historical stories in recent years. Thanks to series like Harlots, another Georgian favourite based on Hallie Rubenhold’s Covent Garden Ladies, many regular viewers of period drama are now surely aware that early 19th-century Britain was much more diverse than we might previously have believed. Bridgerton’s casting is not necessarily ‘colour-blind’; to say that would imply that the drama does not consider the weight and history of colour and race. Instead, suggests Greig (who was interviewed further about the subject here), it encourages us to think about it more carefully. She explains: “It’s not that you’re ignoring race, but you’re thinking about it quite carefully. In Bridgerton that happens in two ways.
 
“The first is by introducing characters who are inspired by real historical figures. There is a black boxer, Will Mondrich (played by Martins Imhangbe), who is inspired by Bill Richmond.” Richmond was born into slavery in 1763 on Staten Island and fought for the British during the American War of Independence. He was brought to England by his commanding officer and later, when serving as a bodyguard, was introduced to the thrill of London’s bareknuckle boxing scene. He became a professional boxer, remarkably beginning his career at the age of 41, and later opened his own gym, training notable figures of the day such as Lord Byron.
 
The second way Bridgerton breaks new ground is with characters cast in places where we might not expect to see people of colour, such as the aristocracy of the time. Chris Van Dusen and the drama are “sort of playing with the idea of what society would look like under different circumstances,” says Greig. “It draws on what we know to be historical reality, but also asks the audience to think more carefully about their expectations of what a period drama should look like, and also what it might be like if history was slightly different.”
 
Bridgerton plays quite strongly on an idea that has been suggested in various points in history – that Queen Charlotte has some kind of mixed race heritage. “Bridgerton picks up on that and runs with it a bit further than we might otherwise do, and then asks the question: if she did have mixed race heritage, what would the society around her look like? What opportunities might that have meant for other people to being elevated?” explains Greig. In creating the period series he has “always wanted to see,” Chris Van Dusen both shines a light onto a monarch not often featured in the dramas depicting the era, and spotlights the ethnic diversity of Regency Britain.
 
This approach, Greig continues, is “a combination of a historical truth – which is to say that the past is more diverse than we tend to see on screen, and we tend to accept in our popular imagination. But it’s also a fictionalising, asking what history might look like under certain different circumstances. It’s doing both of those things – and I think that’s really valuable, and drama can be very powerful in setting that up.”
 
Bridgerton: “A period drama like no other”. By Elinor Evans. History Extra, December 28, 2020.

More :
Everything You Wanted to Know About Regency London, the High-Society Setting of ‘Bridgerton’. By  Valentina Valentini. Shondaland ,  November  23, 2020