The pursuit of love

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

The actress Winona Ryder once declared that if anyone attempted to film The Catcher in the Rye, she’d have to burn the studio down, such was her love for the book. There’s many a Mitfordian wishing they could enact this retrospective action on the new BBC production of The Pursuit of Love. RAGE-messaging amongst my friends began even before Emily Mortimer’s directorial debut dropped on the iPlayer. ‘There’s not a single line from the book in the trailer!’ ‘Has she actually read the book?’ ‘Let’s go and crack stock whips under her window’. There’s so much not to like about it (Andrew Scott’s viciously fabulous Lord Merlin notwithstanding): the jarring