Anyone watching / watched “A very British scandal”?

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 …

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Except, Eazybee, GM damaged other, innocent 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?

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.

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.

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.

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?

It was rather foolish to have that photo taken and keeping the diaries. The Duke was more crafty in that he left no evidence of his affairs. He must have been a thoroughly obnoxious man using women for the money they brought and then discarding them when the money ran out. The whole thing was stacked against Margaret, she was vilefied while he went on to marry yet another heiress and his castle restored at no expense to him, he was the disgusting one.

Howjado it was done with a Polaroid camera. They were a very new innovation. One of the reasons the man is said to be Duncan Sandys is that one of the only Polaroids in the country was with the Ministry of Defence and he was the minister. I assume it was the equivalent of Dickpics today. AlthoughI believe there are said to be 2 men Douglas Fairbanks being the other. She seemed to hoard souvenirs and write about her sexual contacts..

She's not coming across as a particularly admirable person but seems to have had a lot of problems in life. The Duke seems to have been a nasty piece of work. I wonder what his upbringing was like.
I thought they were hinting at some form of incest between Margaret and her father, but I probably got that wrong.

Howjado - I wondered that too. Would love to know what V meant. They said it was never disclosed

Can someone explain why the Duchess went to the trouble of taking that damning photograph and keeping it!

The Duke seems to have been an unmitigated shit! It was an excellent production about a set of people with hollow almost pointless lives.
She certainly seems to have been unfairly treated..

Her escort friend implied that it would be impossible for him to have a relationship with her: I assumed he meant that he was gay.

George 6 was left handed