Emily Mortimer’s BBC1 adaptation of Nancy Mitford’s classic The Pursuit of Love is proving a hit with viewers, demonstrating that the antics of our social betters continue to fascinate many of us.
Downton Abbey may have helped pave the way for this interest, but there is far more to the upper classes than Julian Fellowes’ occasionally jejune televisual guidebook to snobbery, etiquette, and unforgivable social faux pas.
Without further ado, ten movies where we ‘Non-U’s’ are given a privileged insight into the lives of the ‘U’s’.
The Scandalous Lady W (2015) Amazon Buy Only
Natalie Dormer (GoT/The Tudors) plays the real-life aristocrat Seymour Fleming (1758-1818), who became Lady Worsley on her unhappy marriage to Sir Richard Worsley, 7th Baronet of that name.
Lady Worsley’s behaviour was shocking, even for those decadent time – with multiple lovers, venereal disease and a descent into the life of the Demimondaine. At one time, her cuckolded husband was said to have humiliated Worsley by displaying his unwitting wife naked when bathing, a practice apparently known as Candaulism.
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