Ever since Colin Firth dragged himself out of a lake in the 1995 television adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the appetite for racy period drama series has been insatiable. But in the last few years, a new micro-genre has emerged with a devoted fan base: the playfully anachronistic historical dramady. Think Bridgerton, The Favourite, The Great, Harlots, and most recently Netflix’s Decameron, an idiosyncratic reimagining of the 14th century Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio’s collection of short stories. Their use of contemporary music and language, raunchy scenes, and whimsical costumes draw viewers in and add a relatable element for modern-day audiences. These works often employ colourblind casting and retroactively imposed themes of social justice, and are frequently accused of being historical inaccurate or overly apologetic about the reality of past centuries. While shows such as Bridgerton are purely fictional – and so cannot reasonably be accused of dangerously warping people’s perception of the past – others exist in the trickier territory of being based on real historical events.
This summer, the release of Amazon Prime’s My Lady Jane, which perches somewhere between The Tudors and Game of Thrones, sparked controversy for its irreverent rewriting of the history of Lady Jane Grey. Based on the book by Cynthia Hand, this alternative history might be described as existing in somewhere in a Tudor multiverse, exploring what could have been had Lady Jane Grey not been beheaded, had King Edward VI survived his death (here, he is saved by a group of psychopathic nuns), and had there been a persecuted minority that could magically transfigure into animals.
Some are troubled by the fictionalisation of real history for entertainment. Historians like David Starkey and Niall Ferguson argue that it is a slippery slope that ultimately leads to a profound misunderstanding of the past, while Antony Beevor insists that you risk losing the essence of what truly happened, and that can be a disservice to those who lived through it. My Lady Jane goes well beyond losing the “essence” of historical truth. It is a self-aware and fantastical reimagination of events; one intended to entertain, shock, and amuse – not educate. The creators reject the established narrative that Jane was an innocent victim, and revel in rewriting history.
The fear that twisting the past will result in profound misunderstanding is surely misplaced when it comes to this new subgenre of anachronism: I’m not sure who exactly might believe that human-animal shapeshifters once roamed Tudor England, and that Margaret Beaufort was a deranged, part-tortoise 110-year-old. But the reimagination and reinvigoration of history might well make it more accessible: these anti-histories can inspire viewers to explore the real history behind them. Indeed, Google searches for “Lady Jane Grey” increased more than ten-fold in the five days following the show’s release. Not everyone will wade their way through David Loades’s hefty book The Tudors, but this fantastical version has clearly inspired historical engagement. All history is a form of storytelling; subjectivity and constant reinterpretation is what keeps it compelling. My Lady Jane is a thoroughly entertaining rollercoaster that portrays a manipulated version of history. But it preserves the qualities that make the Tudor period captivating – and it encourages viewers to find out the facts behind the fiction. For that, we should celebrate it.
[See also: Joan is a diamond in the rough]
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