Blame it on the coronavirus like everything else, but 2020 will be remembered as the year Christmas Future took over from Christmas Past – and anyone who had access to Netflix gave up poor old Aunt Beeb.
With new productions battled with successive lockdowns, BBC1’s party fare was patchy at best.
We got 75 minutes of Strictly Highlights, a remake of Blankety Blank hosted by Bradley Walsh and by the end of the night it was back to reruns of The Vicar of Dibley.
In this version of Georgian England, aristocrats cast a spell on actresses in Hyde Park before running to the palace to see their sisters present to the monarch. When the queen likes a girl’s appearance, she descends from her throne and kisses her forehead as a sign of royal favor
But streaming giant Netflix showed us how to do Christmas the right way, showcasing the biggest production of the year – eight-hour episodes of a romantic epic set 200 years ago, all heaving bosoms and dashing cash. It is richly presented, at an enormous cost.
How this was possible when terrestrial TV struggled to fill its schedule, no one knows. Probably, deep in their hole in Castle Netflix, a thousand mad scientists have toiled all year round. At the stroke of midnight, a lightning bolt struck and their creation came to life: Franken-Austen!
Bridgerton (Netflix) is screwed together from scraps of Regency romantic novels and is made up of the corsets from Pride and Prejudice, the petticoats from Sense and Sensibility and the wigs from Northanger Abbey.
There are ribbons, bows, silks, and satins from every scene Saint Jane has ever written. Each shot looks more luscious than the last.
Probably, deep in their lair at Castle Netflix, a thousand mad scientists have toiled all year round. At the stroke of midnight, a bolt of lightning struck and their creation came to life: Franken-Austen!
And it is completely doolally. While Bridgerton is a costume drama down to the points of its lace umbrellas, calling it historical would be a gross violation of the Trade Descriptions Act.
In this version of Georgian England, aristocrats cast a spell on actresses in Hyde Park before running to the palace to see their sisters present to the monarch. When the queen likes the appearance of a girl, she descends from her throne and kisses her forehead as a sign of royal favor.
That’s the guideline for battalions of eligible bachelors to hammer on the young lady’s door every afternoon and take turns proposing, until she gives in and agrees to marry one of them.
Queen Charlotte is black by the way – played by Golda Rosheuvel. So are the frowning hero, the Duke of Hastings (Rege-Jean Page) and a significant minority of the nobility, some with dreadlocks.
Since this is all a galloping fantasy, it doesn’t matter if this is an inaccurate depiction of England under George IV: the characters don’t pay attention to race and don’t need us.
Every bit of the plot is wiped out of Jane Austen. A girl (Phoebe Dynevor) with countless sisters and a bossy mother (Pride and Prejudice) discovers she’s irritatingly attracted to a man she can’t stand (still Pride and Prejudice). Meanwhile, a poor cousin (Ruby Barker) comes to stay with her wealthy relatives and discovers that she is much smarter and more handsome than she (Mansfield Park).
The intrigue deepens when all the characters visit Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens (hold on, that’s from William Thackeray’s Vanity Fair).
It’s a cartoon version of classic literature, in which the heroine complains, ‘You have no idea what it is to be a woman. What it could be like to reduce someone’s entire life to a single moment. This is all I was raised for. This is all I am, I have no other value. If I can’t find a husband I’m worthless. ‘
So feminism doesn’t exist in fantasy land.
With not enough sex for Netflix audiences in the original Austen, young Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) devotes every available moment to his mistress. We see more of his butt than his face.
Julie Andrews, once a very different kind of poinsettia as the singing nun Maria in The Sound Of Music, provides narration.
She is a society gossip Lady Whistledown who sees every scandal and describes it in her defamatory pamphlets. If you’re old-fashioned enough to long for a real nun at Christmas, there was Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter) who plowed even more bravely on Call the Midwife (BBC1).
However, this perennial post-turkey fare looks just as faded as an old paper chain, aside from the shiny Netflix crap.
Trixie (Helen George) hasn’t found love since we last saw her. Her godmother (a presence felt offstage but never seen, like Arfur Daley’s missus) is concerned that she’s ‘left on the shelf’ and orders her to try a marriage agency – the 1965 equivalent of internet dating.
That gave Trixie an excuse to sit nervously in the hotel’s tea rooms with a mink wrap around her shoulders.
However, she’s tricky to please – no facial hair, no drinkers and certainly no Germans. The Munich beer festival must be her idea of purgatory.
We have learned that Doctor Receptionist Mrs. Higgins (Georgie Glen) is a spiritualist and that she has fond memories of a Harvey Wallbanger cocktail she drank in 1926. Maybe she was a flapper.
Nurse Crane (Linda Bassett) wanted to run away with the traveling circus and perform on the high trapeze, “with legs as long as ribbons.” Ringmaster Peter Davison let her go, although his character had lung cancer and was on his last legs himself.
It was all a bit pale. Call the midwife who used to deliver emotional barnstormers and now she can’t handle much more than a faint smile. If you decided to leave the tradition and spend Christmas bingeing online instead, no one could criticize you.
Bridgerton (Netflix) is bolted together from bits of Regency romantic novels and is made up of the corsets from Pride and Prejudice, the petticoats from Sense and Sensibility and the wigs from Northanger Abbey