Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the wee donkey … does Sunday night television need another costume drama about posh English folk who live in a big house somewhere in the countryside?
The producers of BBC One’s The Pursuit of Love would unhesitatingly say yes. But Emily Mortimer, the actor who has adapted the Nancy Mitford novel and directed the three-part series, admits she asked herself the same thing.
There are “piles and piles” of them, she said. But “any questions I may have had about does the world really need another costume drama right now … were just completely eradicated by reading the book again”.
The show replaces Line of Duty in the splashy Sunday night drama slot, more often than not a place for lavish adaptations of classic novels. In this case it is Mitford’s outrageously funny 1945 book which tells the story of the lives and loves of cousins and best friends Linda Radlett (Lily James) and Fanny Logan (Emily Beecham).
The series is far racier and much more punk-spirited than some people might expect a Mitford adaptation to be. But Mortimer argues the novel is far more radical than it might seem and that it should not be viewed as a guilty pleasure. Mitford explores important issues with “a sleight of hand”, she said in a Q&A session for the BFI and Radio Times TV festival.
“She deals with things like a mother rejecting her baby. Shellshock from the war. Physical abuse in families. Xenophobia … All of these things but in a way that is so funny and, I don’t know, more effective somehow.”
On rereading the novel, Mortimer said: “I was just so struck by how wickedly funny, completely allergic to earnestness, how radical it still feels about women. It just felt like a breath of air, you just felt forgiven reading it.”
The music includes tracks by New Order, Roxy Music and Le Tigre rather than string quartets or anything from the time.
“I am particularly allergic to the music that is contemporary to that period which is just so depressing,” said Mortimer. “Sort of weird jazz, but not sexy jazz, I don’t know what it is. It is just so uncool.
It is Mortimer’s directorial debut. She said she realises now she was directing it as she was writing it and that she felt a duty to get it right. “I’ve watched enough movies in my life and I’ve been on enough film sets and I’ve seen enough bad adaptations of things to know that I had to make it work visually.
“God knows, probably if Nancy Mitford saw it, she’d be turning in her grave. I wanted to feel the excitement and the danger and the longing, the kind of irreverence I feel when I’m reading the book. I was trying all the time to think of ways of communicating that visually.”
The series also stars Andrew Scott as Lord Merlin, Linda’s eccentric confidante. Scott said he loved the relationship between Linda and Merlin because “you don’t really know what it is all the time and that’s really nice … Sometimes we are in love with our friends. Sometimes we’re not in love with the people we’re supposed to be in love with and it’s just a little bit messy. Love is messy.”
He said Merlin was a fluid character. “I love the idea that sexual and gender identity didn’t just begin in 2006 … This has been going on since the dawn of humanity and certainly in the last century.”
Next up could be Mitford’s sequel Love in a Cold Climate. “That’s next,” said the executive producer, Charles Collier. “If audiences take this to their hearts we’d love to come back. Fingers crossed.”
