Meet the Mitfords
The Mitford sisters flirted with fascism, communism, infamy and scandal – now a new drama, based on their biography by Mary Lovell, brings their outrageous behaviour to the screen
UKTV
- Radio Times Staff
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The Mitford sisters were the six daughters of Lord and Lady Redesdale. They grew up in the early 1900s, in a series of large country houses, with insufficient resources to run them, largely because Lord Redesdale – known as “Farve” to his children – was a hopeless investor. He was a complex oddity, a strict Victorian father who wandered through life bewildered by events.
Under the home-tutelage of their mother and a series of nannies and governesses, the sisters’ education as members of the minor aristocracy was sound but basic, centred on making them suitable wives and mothers within their social set. Notably, their only brother, Tom (who was the third child), was educated at Eton.
From left: Unity, Tom, Deborah, Diana, Jessica, Nancy and Pamela.
Although there have been several TV series based on the family, past attempts to televise the true story of the Mitford sisters have not been wholly successful. Now, Outrageous brings their exploits brilliantly to life, as told by Nancy, the eldest Mitford, which is fitting, because she was the author of many of their childhood eccentricities.
Nancy 28 November 1904 – 30 June 1973
Bessie Carter as Nancy. UKTV
Highly intelligent and bored with country life, Nancy’s teenage years were dedicated to “teasing” her younger sisters, going to endless lengths to devise pranks, such as dressing up in disguise and pouncing on young Pam, or pretending to be an elderly whiskery house-buyer. Oddly, no one saw through these disguises.
Her “teases” were usually funny, but often as barbed and hurtful as her characterisations of her family – transformed into the Radlett family in the famous best-selling novels she wrote as an adult (including The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate). She disguised her vulnerability, and a frustrated intelligence, with brilliant and pithy mockery of her family, and set the pattern for attention-seeking sibling rivalry.
Pamela
Two years younger than Nancy, Pam was the least brilliant intellectually, but the most practical, and happiest. Beloved of friends such as poet laureate John Betjeman (who coined the “Mitford Girls” tag), she married one of the country’s most brilliant physicists. Most content when working with animals, she had genuine ability at farming husbandry, and travelled extensively throughout Europe long before mass tourism made this easy. Once she carried home in her luggage half a dozen eggs that she proceeded to hatch out to form the basis for a flock of rare-breed chickens. Later, she was always a loyal support and confidante to her sisters in their various escapades.
Diana
Joanna Vanderham as Diana. UKTV
The third sister was the beauty of the family, and the first to fly the nest. Like Nancy, she had a good brain but she was not interested in school. As a teenager she married the heir to the Guinness fortune, and together they became leaders of London society – until Diana met the fascist politician Oswald Mosley. She fell so madly in love she absorbed everything he said. It shattered her family and scandalised society when she left her husband and took her two sons to live in a London flat where she was openly his mistress – though Mosley was married and a notorious womaniser.
It is probable that she was the only person in the world who knew both Hitler and Churchill intimately and was warmly regarded by both. Later, as Mosley’s wife on the outbreak of the Second World War, she was described as “the most hated woman in England” and spent most of the war in Holloway Prison.
Unity and Decca
Two of the three remaining sisters began a rivalry based on the political issues of the day: Europe was still reeling from the effects of the First World War and a financial crash – how could it best recover? With a far-right policy such as that adopted by Hitler in Germany? Or was socialism the answer? To teenagers Unity and Decca, adopting opposing sides began as a play. Unity espoused fascism; Decca supported communism.
Curiously, Unity had been conceived in a gold mining town in Canada, named Swastika, during one of Lord Redesdale’s ill-omened money-making schemes, and her middle name was Valkyrie. Taken to Germany by Diana in 1933, Unity engineered a meeting with Hitler and became a member of his inner circle and convinced herself that it was her destiny to prevent a war between Germany and England. She made headlines at home for her uncritical support of Hitler, but her star would have a brief and tragic trajectory.
Decca (Jessica) took her support of communism equally seriously. At 17, she eloped with Esmond Romilly, left-wing nephew of Winston Churchill (who was a cousin of Lord Redesdale), and the pair created newspaper headlines when they headed to Spain to fight Franco. Anthony Eden, Foreign Secretary at the time, signed off on the naval destroyer that was sent to try to retrieve the runaways.
Deborah
The back-stop of the family, 16 years younger than Nancy, was “Debo”. She was probably a final attempt by Lord Redesdale to get a second son as “spare” for Tom. Debo’s teenage years were marred by the outrageous behaviour of her elder sisters who were never out of the headlines, yet she genuinely adored the family life that her older siblings rejected, deeming it “idyllic”. She fell in love with Andrew Cavendish who – through a double family tragedy – would succeed his elder brother to a Dukedom. It was largely thanks to Debo’s vision, enthusiasm and unique ability, that Chatsworth House still exists today. She would achieve great things in her long life as Duchess of Devonshire, and her memoirs read like a who’s who of 20th-century world leaders. MARY LOVELL
Mary Lovell is the author of The Mitford Girls, upon which Outrageous is based
Bessie Carter plays Nancy
“How did these six women raised under one roof end up so different?” wonders 31-year-old Bessie Carter. “What we do in the show is look at those early years when they’re about to step out into the world and make their mark. They’re refusing to conform to what was expected of them at the time, which was to be wives and mothers.
“They were definitely women who didn’t want to just do the debutante balls,” adds the actor most familiar from Bridgerton. “They wanted to work and to exercise their brains.”
Bessie Carter (middle) with Harriet Cains and Nicola Coughlan in Bridgerton. Netflix
However, apart from Nancy, who made a bit of money from writing, “they either had to rely on rich husbands or allowances from Papa. And if you’re not giving people a place in society where they feel valued, they’re going to turn to places where they feel that they’re contributing. For some of these sisters, that ended up in problematic areas. When their voices weren’t being heard, that built up their anger and frustration. If we don’t listen to the voiceless, they’ll just scream louder.”
These self-reliant women feel decades ahead of their time. “The Mitfords were modern women,” agrees Carter, “they were really progressive. They always asked, ‘Why can’t I do that?’”
That independent-mindedness, Carter believes, was down to the Mitfords’ “fierce determination. Although their father said that women shouldn’t be at school he let them read every book in his library. So they were extremely resourceful.”
They were women who didn't just want to do the debutante balls
Bessie Carter
At its heart, Outrageous charts the relationship between Nancy and Diana, which broke down after Diana’s marriage to Oswald Mosley. “Nancy had to take a stand,” Carter explains. “We’ve all probably had that moment when you have a sibling who’s going out with someone who makes you go, ‘Aargh!’ But this was on a global scale. And that really drove a wedge between Nancy and Diana.”
Beyond that, “Outrageous is looking at these six sisters and wondering how long a family will hold together. And at what point do you have to confront hard truths and face your differences? That’s relevant today, isn’t it? We probably all have a family member who politically is in a different place. How do we deal with that?”
The actor says that Nancy’s feelings towards her parents in no way reflects her loving bond with her own parents, Jim Carter and Imelda Staunton, with whom she is currently starring in a West End production of Mrs Warren’s Profession – “It’s a very different relationship”. That also extended to her feelings towards her on-screen mother – “but it did help that I knew Anna Chancellor and that made me feel very calm. She’s an amazing woman, and so I felt very relaxed in her company. She became like a mother to all of us.”
How does Carter think viewers will respond to the show? Now more than ever, she stresses, “We have to talk and listen to each other.” JAMES RAMPTON
Joanna Vanderham plays Diana
Joanna Vanderham confesses the outfits she wears as Diana Mitford did, “half the work for me. I had these incredible power shoulders, I felt like I could take on the world. I have a scene where I’m telling Churchill how to run the country – and that’s all because I have my power shoulders on! That’s the power of a good dress.”
The 34-year-old Scottish actor, who has also taken leading roles in The Go-Between and The Paradise, relished being able to dive into an enormous pool of research about the Mitfords. “One of the things I enjoyed was looking at old photographs of Diana because she was the socialite of the time. She was in the tabloids before anyone else.
“There’s a whole wealth of imagery. Diana had this unique thing that she did with her eyelids. She struck this pose where her eyelids were at half-mast. Apparently, she hardly moved her face when she talked or posed for photographs because she didn’t want to give herself wrinkles.
Diana (left) and Nancy Mitford pictured in the early 1930s. Alamy
“So, I try throughout the show to have my eyelids half-closed. And there’s only one way you can hold your head and see if your eyes are half-closed – you have to look down your nose at people. That just brought her to life for me.”
All of the Mitford sisters’ stories are extraordinary, but Diana’s stands out. She was initially part of the Bright Young Things, a group of Bohemian socialites in 1920s London about whom Evelyn Waugh wrote in his novel Vile Bodies.
The Mitfords were outrageous – the title is justified
Joanna Vanderham
But that all changed when she left her wealthy husband Bryan Guinness for Oswald Mosley. Their marriage in 1936 took place at the home of the Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, with Adolf Hitler as a guest of honour.
Diana’s involvement with fascism resulted in three years’ internment at Holloway Prison during the Second World War. Vanderham explains, “Nancy told on Diana. She informed Churchill that Diana was a threat to national security and had her imprisoned. Who does that to their own sister? The Mitfords were mad!”
Diana and Oswald Moseley in 1962. Getty
The actor, who has two sisters and a brother, says she was able to draw on her own family dynamic, saying of her siblings: “They’re the first true friendships that you ever have. They’ve been through things with you that no one else has. It’s a really special relationship that I treasure. Thankfully, I get on very well with my family. Unfortunately, some of the Mitfords stopped talking to each other entirely.”
Diana never changed her tune. Her interview on Desert Island Discs in 1989 was condemned because she denied the Holocaust and expressed her unrepentant admiration for Hitler.
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Her story is just one element of a real-life drama that is barely believable. Vanderham observes, “I feel that people will go, ‘That wouldn’t have happened.’ Then they’ll Google it and realise it did. The Mitfords were outrageous. The title is absolutely justified.” JAMES RAMPTON
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Radio Times Staff
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