I have very mixed feelings about it. All the striding about and the music reminded me of 'Tom Jones'. Yet I felt that the real Anne Lister and her life was much darker and far more nuanced than portrayed in this serial. And I am pretty sure that even if she dressed and walked like a man, and every report says she did, she didn't stride around like a pantomime prince, which is what Suranne Jones was doing.
On the whole I found it an uncomfortable mix between fact and fiction. I would have preferred either a slower and more sombre version of Anne Lister' s life as it really was or an entirely fictional version of a similar person's life rather like 'Tom Jones' is, where the hero/heroine can stride around and the heroine can simper and we can all recognise a rollicking good romp when we get it.
I think the director has got it just right for today’s audiences., sadly Namsnanny, I think you are right, a good story marmelised and debased and bound to form the basis of all kinds of myths about about being a lesbian in the early 19th century.