Anyone watching / watched “A very British scandal”?

We watched all three episodes and I thought it was very good. However, OH said he didn't think much of it. Perhaps it appeals more to females?

Neither of them came out of this particularly well. I felt sorry for the children. In my opinion the duke and duchess were as bad as each other. It was a well acted drama and I loved the scenery.

They were both unpleasant characters. She seemed to lie a lot- I assume her stepmother wasn’t having an affair with the Duke?And what about her daughter from her first marriage, she never seemed to be with her mother. Did she remain with Mr Sweeney?

What a way to live.

They and their circle are just coming across as such privileged but useless people. Everything handed to them on a plate, life all about partying and having a good time, children packed off to boarding school almost as soon as they're out of nappies, no ability to go out and earn a living.
Pointless and ultimately sad lives.

I found the last episode sobering, and I would like to know how accurate the portrayal of the Duke was, and the exchanges in the courtroom. He certainly was not excoriated by the Press in the way she was. Unfortunately script writers are very selective in the material they use, and when they are dealing with real people and events they have a duty to portray the facts as accurately as possible, which they tend to disregard in pursuit of a more sensational story.

I remember the case but didn't understand the full impact of the photograph of the headless man at the time. Peter Combe (?) was not her lover because he was homosexual, but could not use it in his, and her, defence at the time because it was illegal.
And the standard excuse of 'poor little rich girl from a dysfunctional family' is rather trite. Does the same excuse apply to Ghislaine Maxwell?

Except, Eazybee, GM damaged other, innocent lives.

He certainly was not excoriated by the Press in the way she was.

Well put.
She was called names which stuck until the day she died.
He was referred to by his title.
It's interesting that women who marry wealthy men are referred to as "gold-diggers". He was the perfect example of a gold-digger but the term is not used for men. He married another heiress as soon as the divorce from Margaret was finalised.

Interesting portrayal of the rich and famous at play, and sobering to think that women received this sort of sexist treatment in society and law as late as 1963. A sort of upmarket East Enders.

Aristocratic wives had so little security in those days even if they were the ones with the money. The men had a network of ‘chums’, clubs and the family name to rely on if thing got a bit tricky.

Poor Lady Lucan was also married to a monster and had a difficult job proving she was sane just so she could keep her own children - and that was before he murdered the nanny.

Pretty awful characters, very good acting though from Claire Foy and Paul Bettany. Too young to remember it, but struck me how judgemental the establishment was about people's private lives, might be unsavoury but none of anyone's business imo. As always the women get dragged through the mud and pilloried as with Christine Keeler. Watching the American Crime series "Impeachment" decades later, not a lot changed Monica Lewinsky was the one who got thrown to the wolves.

TerriBull I watched Impeachment too. Very interesting, and as you say, Monica Lewinsky was the one who got thrown to the wolves.

The women are "slut shamed", yet there isn't even a word or term to describe a man's behaviour. Misogyny is still alive and well.

Enjoying it. Remember the press coverage and am interested to see the story from the other side. Undoubtedly they were all privileged and entitled and much of their behaviour is abhorrent but i found ep 2 quite compelling. My one quibble is that Claire Foy - attractive though she is - isn’t nearly as elegant and svelte as was the Duchess of Argyll …

I think they were both pretty awful people. Her attempt to cast doubt on his boys' paternity and to buy a child were appalling. I remember it being well covered in the press - the gutter hacks were pretty awful too! Of course, one can find reasons for it all - inadequate parenting, boarding schools, etc., as well as an aristocratic entitlement and the wealth to behave as they pleased. It's a period piece though and dramatising it probably leaves out a good deal of material. In real life the judge took over 3 hours to give his verdict so the court evidence must have been far more extensive than shown in the film.

I thought Claire Foy was wonderful. I remember her playing Ann Boleyn in a tv series a few years ago. Of course, it was many years before this happened but didn’t a lot of the aristocracy marry rich American heiress’s, the Churchill’s being one such family ( although that might have been a love match, too: I can’t remember without googling it).

I loved this and thought the acting was excellent. TV at it's best! Times have certainly changed, I remember a girl I knew when I was 16 becoming pregnant, it was all hushed up and the girl was sent away to have the baby which was then adopted, she had no choice in the matter.

This trial was the year I got married. In terms of the social predujices it all seems true to me. These behaviours and their associated values reminded me why I chose not to be a debutante. These coming out balls finished in 1958. I was at secretarial college and excluded from a certain circle of the students who were all in the 'set' and attending parties etc.

I'm so glad the duke of Edinburgh brought them to an end and the Queen now has Garden Parties instead.

And I wasn’t particularly appalled by their promiscuous behaviour but by the fact he was making decisions in the House of Lords simply by the accident of birth. Wrong then and wrong now.

Lady Colin Campbell, who is a TV celebrity in the UK now in her later days, was assigned as male at birth in the Caribbean. She met and married Lord Colin Campbell in New York. He was the Duke of Argyll’s second, younger, son who appears in this drama as a child. She divorced him and claimed he was a monster and cruel to her. So perhaps disfunction ran in the family.

I could hardly bear to watch the last episode. Yes, she was far from faultless, but she was crushed by the closing of ranks and outright misogyny. And why were the public so outraged and horrified. Who was she to them after all. You’d think they’d have better things to do than wait outside court to rage and spit at her.

Very good acting and an interesting vignette by the real Margaret at the end. Both main characters had a very selfish sense of over entitlement even taking I to account the upper social circle to which they belonged. However Margaret made so many errors of judgment in the way she conducted herself when it was clear the Duke had married mainly for her money, and she him for the title. The double standards of the day were always going to be used against a woman like Margaret.

It happened more often than we today realise basically down to the fact that the law at the time made it very difficult to obtain a divorce.
I think it happened a fair bit in the aristocracy - many were marriages of convenience involving money or breeding and they either put up and shut up or turned a blind eye to the other person's affairs.

I think I may binge watch !
My mum left my dad in 1964 for another man. She couldn’t afford to take us with her. It was unheard of for women to leave their children in the 60s. I was 14 and my brother was 12 and nobody knew how to cope! My mum never stopped feeling guilty even though we told her time after time it wasn’t her fault. She was so bullied ! She was brave as well. The 2nd marriage was a nigh5mare as well ??

Well, there were worse things than divorce!

I had an aunt (by marriage) who committed suicide in the bath in 1961 or thereabouts.

Only very close family friends knew the truth, anyone else was just informed that Daddy's SIL had died unexpectedly.

To this day, I have no idea why she did it - I believe her suicide note just said, "Sorry, I can't go on."

There was no history of any nervous complaint or of marital abuse or infidelity.

I feel sorry for the kids of these overpriviledged monsters for the lack of love and affection, other than that? No pity here, interested in this as entertainment only, lovely scenery and Claire Toy one of our most talented and accomplished actors, very underrated and shoved aside for the mediocre Helen mirren ( who was famous in 60/70s for showing her boobs! Not her acting!!!) ....oh and I surely'would' with the gorgeous Paul Bettany..mmmmm!

#CLAIRE FOY!!!!