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Winnipeg Free Press
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Scandalous society sisters' saga still enthrals
Outrageous (now streaming on BritBox, with new episodes dropping on Tuesdays) is the story of the Mitford sisters, six aristocratic Englishwomen whose lives overlapped with a who's-who of 20th-century history in a fashionable flurry of weddings, divorces, betrayals and scandals. Some cultural commentators have attempted to explain why Mitford mania is still relevant today by comparing the sisters to the Kardashians, which is catchy but misleading. Yes, both sibling sets have a knack for grabbing tabloid headlines and a talent for picking terrible men. But if one is really looking for relevance in Outrageous, the most relatable scene for many 2025 viewers might be the Christmas dinner where the Mitford girls' mother (Anna Chancellor) tells them to stop arguing about Hitler and just pass the Brussels sprouts. What really makes the Mitford saga so crushingly current is its collision of ordinary family life (well, sort of ordinary — the Mitfords were an eccentric lot) with polarizing politics. Coming of age in the 1930s, in a world that seems on the verge of violence and collapse, the sibs take up entrenched and irreconcilable political positions, testing their sisterly bonds and taking the 'let's agree to disagree' stance to its absolute limits. Now that feels contemporary. This soapy, splashy six-episode series is never subtle, but then neither were its subjects. The messy adolescent bedroom of Unity (Shannon Watson) and Jessica (Zoe Brough) features swastikas and pictures of the Fuhrer on one side and images of Marx, Lenin and the hammer and sickle on the other. This is not the scriptwriters creating an overly obvious image of a house divided: This was the sisters' actual décor. (In real life, they drew a chalk line down the centre.) Outrageous initially presents these two sisters' ideological differences as awkward comedy, as in a scene in which Unity is vigorously Sieg Heiling on the well-rolled lawn of the family's ancestral home while Jessica lounges nearby, reading The Daily Worker. But things get more serious, more world-historical, when Unity travels to Munich, eventually gaining entry into Hitler's inner circle, while Jessica becomes enamoured with her cousin Esmond Romilly, a communist who has gone off to fight in the Spanish Civil War. Meanwhile, another emotional and political rift is developing between Diana (Joanna Vanderham), the beauty of the family, and Nancy (Bessie Carter), 'the clever one.' After Diana leaves a safe society marriage to begin an affair with Oswald Mosley (Joshua Sasse), the black-shirted leader of the British Union of Fascists, Nancy — the writer who will become known for The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate — pens the 1935 comic novel Wigs on the Green. The book satirizes a fictionalized version of Mosley's movement as silly, self-important and ineffectual, and even though Nancy defends it as 'meaningless fun,' as 'froth,' Diana is furious. The eventual fate of Wigs on the Green hints at some of the problems with Outrageous. After the war, Nancy Mitford declined to reprint the book. There was 'nothing funny about fascists,' she suggested. Likewise, the series can feel confused as it deals with its political clashes and with the very Mitfordian overlap of private life and public events. Sometimes the show plays as a good-looking comic romp, with its posh frocks, jaunty jazz-age songs and seemingly endless supply of champagne. Sundays Kevin Rollason's Sunday newsletter honouring and remembering lives well-lived in Manitoba. Sometimes it plays as melodrama, with the Mitford girls' rivalries, resentments and deep love given poignant expression. And then, whoa, suddenly we're at the Nuremberg Rally with Unity and Diana. Not surprisingly, Outrageous has a tricky time handling these tonally disparate parts. The show struggles to convey the weight of wider world events, but it does understand the divided dinner table. What will resonate for many viewers, what will make the leap from the 1930s to today, are the smaller, intimate conflicts of family members who love each other but can't stand each other's politics. Alison GillmorWriter Studying at the University of Winnipeg and later Toronto's York University, Alison Gillmor planned to become an art historian. She ended up catching the journalism bug when she started as visual arts reviewer at the Winnipeg Free Press in 1992. Read full biography Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber. Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Time Magazine
25-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Magazine
What It's Like to Make a Show About Your Fascist Great-Grandfather
Eagle-eyed viewers of Outrageous, BritBox's new historical drama about the six real-life Mitford sisters' wildly diverging political views at the onset of World War II, might pause the closing credits for a quick double take. Does that say…'Mosley'? Executive Producer Matthew Mosley, actually, and yes, he is one of those Mosleys. Matthew is indeed the great-grandson of Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists and once one-half of the most hated couple in England, portrayed in the new series by Joshua Sasse. Matthew is the great-grandson of Oswald Mosley, from his first marriage to Lady Cynthia Curzon, on whom he cheated with both her younger sister and their stepmother, as well as (the then-married) Diana Mitford, whom he finally wed after Cynthia died in 1933. Adolf Hitler was their guest of honor. Deemed dangerous to national security by MI5, Mosley and his wife spent three years interned in prison before moving abroad in disgrace. No one would blame Matthew Mosley for staying mum about his notorious surname, but the head of development at Firebird Pictures—by complete fluke, though we'll get to that later—is instead using his platform to tell his not-so-comfy family story far and wide. Why not pop grandpa's problematic politics in the vault like the rest of us? Did he find any redeeming qualities in his abhorrent ancestor? And what's it like to grow up in the shadow of the most hated man in the country? As Outrageous lands on American screens, London-based Matthew Mosley dishes all the dirty familial details. Mosley: Oswald Mosley was my great-grandfather. I'm descended through his first wife, not through him and Diana Mitford. Oswald Mosley had three children by his first wife, Cynthia—Vivien, Michael and Nicholas, my grandfather. My father was his son, Shaun. I can't pinpoint any one moment, actually, and thankfully I was never sat down one day and told some dark family secret. Instead we were very open and it was always talked about, so I feel like I always knew. But [my great-grandfather] has cast a shadow over the family in many ways, so it's something we've all had to reconcile with over the years. Being descended from such a despised character is something you have to come to terms with. Some people are descended from brilliant people, but I don't happen to be and most people aren't. My family has just had to accept that, and we did. On one hand, it does feel like ancient history—I mean, I wasn't even born when Oswald Mosley died. They all lived in these massive country estates, which wasn't like my upbringing at all. Reading about him is almost like reading about someone who lived on a different planet. He certainly impacted my life though. At school, when we were studying the Second World War, my teacher politely moved over that section. By university, people recognized my name and would ask me if I was related. I've always been honest about it, because it's important to acknowledge things that happened and that are still happening. I've never suffered from the connection though. I think people find it interesting more than anything else. One of England's proudest achievements is being on the right side of history during the war. My great-grandfather was not. He was married to 'the most hated woman in England,' as Diana was widely known, which arguably makes him the country's most hated man. But when he was younger, he was a perfectly reasonable politician. He was idealistic, clever, an excellent orator. The pursuit of power sort of clouded everything for him and seems to have taken him to a place when he believed terrible things. I think there was a sort of rigidity and inflexibility in him that he could never admit he was wrong, even if he knew he was wrong. Outrageous was a passion project of Sarah Williams, who's been obsessed with this story for years. I was obviously aware and knew a fair amount about the story, albeit more from the Mosley side than the Mitford side, but Sarah knows all the different facets of each of the sisters. Sarah had no idea of my connection to the family when she pitched the show to my boss, who said, 'There's actually someone who works here who is related.' I came on board the project very soon after that. It was a little bit weird at first, as my great-grandfather is a big character in the show. I've never envisioned being in this situation. No, I deliberately didn't. First of all, because I'm a producer and already busy spinning all these plates—costumes, props, set design, scheduling—at once to make a show happen. Every so often, I'd walk on set and Joshua Sasse would be in full costume as my great-grandfather, and I'd think, Goodness, this is my family history. It was quite surreal, as you can imagine. But the truth is Sarah and Joshua had done much more research than I ever did. The actors were so impressive in the depth of their research—Joshua actually had made this incredible scrapbook with photographs and newspaper articles. He was telling me all these things I didn't know, so I was learning as much as anyone else. It's one thing to read about someone in a textbook or a newspaper, but to bring the person to life, the actors take so many physical cues to portray their personalities. Diana, for example, when anything unpleasant was said in her presence, would slowly blink her eyes in an incredible act of denial. Joshua found pictures of Oswald Mosley practicing his speeches and he adopted the physical stances [my great-grandfather] took to get his message across in the most powerful way. Joshua also showed me a letter to Mosley from his mother where she compares him to the Messiah. That's a strange little insight into his psychology that I won't forget. I think it's so important to be frank and honest. We all have our psychology and our own context. Even people who subscribe to the most terrible beliefs have got there through their particular experience of being in the world. To understand, we need to engage and acknowledge the complexity of human beings. In a way, this show is almost like a warning from history, particularly with the characters who become involved in very far-right politics like my great-grandfather. We should be asking how and why people go down these dark political paths because it's happening again.
Boston Globe
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
‘Outrageous' proves the travails of the Mitford family are as timely as ever
And what lives they are. Nancy is a novelist, unusual enough in the era, and especially close to her sister Diana (Joanna Vanderham), who's married, boredly, to a kind and wealthy heir to the Guinness beer fortune. Diana has done what all six daughters of the Mitford family are meant to do, and married well. Widely praised as a beauty, she and Nancy are popular socialites, despite their baron father's shrinking fortune. Diana startles everyone by falling deeply in love with Oswald Mosley (Joshua Sasse), the head of the British Union of Fascists. What's more, she divorces her husband to be with him, then courts scandal for years while Mosley, a cad, delays their marriage (in part because he's having an affair with his dead wife's sister. He's a pretty wretched person all around). But her connection to Mosley leads their younger sister Unity (Shannon Watson) to develop a deep and horrifying affinity for fascism, and in particular for Adolf Hitler, who she manages to meet socially while at finishing school in Munich. Advertisement So that's three sisters down. We've also got Jessica (Zoe Brough), who sees starving people protesting a ball she's attending with her family during the Depression and promptly grows a political and moral conscience, developing a fascination with communism and a concurrent interest in a similarly rebellious and coincidentally quite handsome cousin. You can also think of her as This Woman Is Absolutely Right and Why Isn't Anyone Listening to Her. Second eldest Pamela (Isobel Jesper-Jones), sole brother Tom (Toby Regbo), and youngest sister Why did the family split like this? As their father (James Purefoy) bemoans to their mother (Anna Chancellor), he's normal and she's normal, but 'each one of these girls is more perverse than the other.' He's not wrong. The series has a light tone that contrasts sharply with its bleak subject matter (expect a jazzy soundtrack to intrude on scene changes), but that's also how the family experienced what happened. They were all living what they thought were parallel lives, until it became painfully clear that they weren't. At a time when many people's family members are supporting causes they find morally repugnant, the Mitford family, for all their wealth and distance from the present day, may bear more familiarity than we'd like. Advertisement Lisa Weidenfeld can be reached at
New Statesman
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New Statesman
Outrageous: a Mitfords rehash too many
I feel about the Mitford industry a bit like I do about the Jane Austen industry. Read the books, I beg you. Enjoy them, learn from them if you can or must (though don't you dare say the word 'relatable' out loud if you're standing anywhere near me). But these endless spin-offs; these wild, parasitical imaginings. Around all of them, anachronisms, myths and clichés grow, like thorns in a fairy tale. Outrageous, a series based on Mary S Lovell's 2001 biography of the six Mitford sisters, is the work of Sarah Williams, who also co-wrote Becoming Jane,a film about the early life of you-know-who, and its title alerts you (just like the peppy jazz trumpets on its soundtrack) to its sensibility. The siblings' vaunted eccentricity is very much to the fore, whether we're talking about the rat Unity Mitford (Shannon Watson) keeps in her evening bag on the night of her coming-out party, or the tin hat Decca (Zoe Brough) wears in her bedroom when she's pretending to be a revolutionary ducking hand grenades. It's cartoony and exaggerated and rather too determined to be modern and droll. The subtitles that explain locations read 'That Damp London Flat' and 'Diana's Country Pile', as if too much specificity might be off-putting – these rich people! We take up the story in 1931. Our narrator is the oldest Mitford, Nancy (Bessie Carter), by this point the author of two funny, but slight, novels (her best books will come later). For the family, it's a time of relative innocence. Diana, married to the filthy rich Bryan Guinness, has yet to run off with Oswald Mosley (Joshua Sasse), the leader of the British Union of Fascists, and Unity has yet to develop her horrifying crush on Hitler. Pressing matters include the finances of their parents, aka Farve (James Purefoy) and Muv (Anna Chancellor), which threaten their allowances, and Nancy's ongoing status as a spinster (she's a perilous 29). On the rebound, soon she'll marry the utterly unreliable Peter Rodd (Jamie Blackley). So far, so good. I adore Carter as Nancy Mitford, at this point in life an unlikely combination of innocence and cynicism, and all the performances are deft: galumphing, scary Unity with her Nazi eyes; stout, scrunch-faced, farm-loving Pamela (Isobel Jesper Jones); Deborah (Orla Hill), the youngest, who sits on staircases at parties, nosy-parkering at the Champagne-fuelled glamour below (one day, she'll be a duchess). If you want houses and clothes and jewellery, your eyes won't hurt at all. But still, I wonder who this is for. If you're interested in the Mitfords, and have read lots about them, this is a primer of which you've no need. If you're not interested, you'll be baffled as to what the hell all the fuss is about. Is Outrageous a soap? A slightly more plausible Downton Abbey? Context, by necessity (because there's so much to get through), has been peeled away. Things happen so suddenly – Diana and Unity's little away day to Nuremberg, to take just one example – they seem outlandish. Nancy's cleverness and wit, or Decca's unlikely left-wing politics, cannot be fully explored, or even much revealed, which renders them little more than daffy, privileged aristos with a nice line in turquoise earrings and Fair Isle tank tops. Behind all this, I sense a low-level buzz of anxiety on the part of the producers. Are the Mitfords dodgy, or heroic, or both? Are we allowed to like them, or not, and what will it mean for the drama's chances of success if we don't? On the soundtrack, the trumpet players stick mutes in their instruments, but even then the newcomer may be uncertain as to what she or he is supposed to feel (possibly nothing). For my part, I was caught between admiring its stars and production values, and a kind of proprietorial irritation at its rapidly moving parts. If I hadn't read most of them already, Outrageous wouldn't send me to the novels, letters, diaries, or even to the many excellent biographies that have been written about the Mitfords. But then, I was also convalescing after a medical emergency. I looked down at my dressing gown – not to boast, but it's just the kind of thing Nancy might have worn the morning after a big night at Quaglino's – and decided to stick with them all just a little while longer. Let's see. Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe Outrageous Available on U [See also: Gen-Z is afraid of porn, and Sabrina Carpenter] Related
Daily Mirror
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mirror
Outrageous' James Purefoy on ‘joy' of reuniting with co-star
Two British icons of the screen finally join forces in the new period drama Outrageous, releasing this week on U and U&Drama Outrageous star James Purefoy has opened up about working with his long-time friend Anna Chancellor for the first time ever in the upcoming period drama. This scandalous series coming this week on U and U&Drama takes viewers back to the 1930s when the shadow of World War II was beginning to loom. While Nancy Mitford (played by Bessie Carter) becomes a reputable writer, her sisters follow drastically different career paths. Under the stern eyes of their parents, David Freeman-Mitford aka 'Farve' (Purefoy) and Sydney Bowles aka 'Muv' (Chancellor), the family is catapulted into notoriety as the sisters become rebels, socialites and even rub shoulders with fascists. Speaking to Reach at Outrageous' London premiere, Purefoy explained his co-star has been a dear friend for years despite never sharing the screen. 'She's an amazing actress,' he said. 'She's the godmother to my eldest child, I've known her 35 years and this is the first time I've worked with her. 'It was just a joy working with a really old friend because there's a lot of shorthand there and it was a very easy fit for us. 'It was just an enormous pleasure every single day.' Throughout the six-part drama, the Mitford patriarch struggles to keep his foothold in high society following a substantial loss during the Wall Street Crash. Although he attempts to rule his household with an iron fist, his anarchic daughters have other ideas. As Britain faced economic turmoil in the years preceding the war, his daughters Diana (Joanna Vanderham) and Unity (Shannon Watson) blindly swear allegiance to the British Union of Fascists. Meanwhile, Muv is simply desperate for her daughters to find good husbands during an era when family connections meant everything. 'The thing about Anna is she's so curious about everybody and everything,' Purefoy added. 'She will talk to anybody about anything. And is always interested, and that's what makes her such a good actress.' This isn't the first time Purefoy and Chancellor have been involved in the same project, however. Chancellor portrayed a fascist herself, the villainous Dr. Frances Gaunt, in the popular Batman prequel series Pennyworth, starring Jack Bannon as the nocturnal hero's future butler Alfred. Despite not sharing scenes together, Purefoy also had a major role in the Epix and HBO Max series, playing Captain Gulliver 'Gully' Troy, aka Captain Blighty, in the second and third seasons. As two legendary stars of the British stage and screen, don't miss the chance to see Purefoy and Chancellor as married aristocrats in this scandalous new drama that truly lives up to its title. Outrageous premieres Thursday, 19th June on U, U&Drama and BritBox.
