Coming to 大象传媒 One and 大象传媒 iPlayer from Boxing Day at 9pm, A Very British Scandal tells the story behind the divorce of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll in 1963, one of the most notorious, extraordinary and brutal legal cases of the 20th century.
Famed for her charisma, beauty and style, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, dominated the front pages, as a divorce featuring accusations of forgery, theft, violence, drug-taking, secret recording, bribery and an explicit polaroid picture - all played out in the white-hot glare of the 1960s media.
A Very British Scandal turns this scandal inside out in order to explore the social and political climate of post-war Britain, looking at attitudes towards women, and asking whether institutional misogyny was widespread at the time. As her contemporaries, the press, and the judiciary sought to vilify her, Margaret kept her head held high with bravery and resilience, refusing to go quietly as she was betrayed by her friends and publicly shamed by a society that revelled in her fall from grace.
Screenwriter Sarah Phelps introduces the drama below.
A Very British Scandal begins Boxing Day at 9pm and continues at 9pm on 27th and 28th December.
In the summer of 1993, I was living in a cockroach-infested flat and earning my rent selling advertising space in magazines, a job I was so bad at it was almost a talent. On the table next to mine, was a guy who worked on a Royal magazine, very camp and very funny and every morning, we鈥檇 tear through the papers looking for leads. One morning, we were doing exactly this and he suddenly said, "Oh, she鈥檚 dead!" I said, "Who?" And he said "The Dirty Duchess," and off my blank look said "Oh, come on, Sarah, you must have heard of the Dirty Duchess" - and that was the beginning.
There was a photograph to accompany the obituary, a frail, bird-like woman glaring out from under a giant sculpted black wig with a restrained imperious fury, there were details of her beauty, style and privilege, her many affairs, her vicious divorce from her second husband, the Duke of Argyll, the notorious Polaroid photographs and the speculation about the identity of the Headless Man. Still, after all this time, the speculation about who he was. I wasn鈥檛 a writer at this time, I didn鈥檛 even know that I was going to be a writer but there was that little shiver in the blood of looking at the woman in her obituary photo and wondering, "But who are you? What鈥檚 your story?"
And here we are, several decades later with A Very British Scandal, the tempestuous marriage and the bitter, brutal divorce of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. It鈥檚 a story about a woman who refused to be slut shamed, who refused to go quietly and refused to do as she was told. She set fire to the expectation of her class, gender and her sex rather than go quietly. She put the private lives of the wealthy, the landed and the titled all over the front pages, not the untouchable great and good, but bare forked animals. Judge Wheatley鈥檚 three-hour long indictment of Margaret鈥檚 character, her sexual morals, destroyed her and meant that even when she鈥檇 died, two telesales people in North London would talk about the 'Dirty Duchess鈥� - but I think she鈥檚 heroic.
And she was honourable. Even before the nature of the photographs were made evident, Margaret was accused of having more than 80 lovers. She could have defended herself - some were single friends in extra-marital affairs and others, if she鈥檇 been honest about them, would have been sent to prison for being gay. But Margaret never betrayed her friends. That鈥檚 honour. She was spoiled, troubled, complex, demanding, infuriating, beautiful, stylish, silly, generous, vain, bloody-minded, very funny and brave. I love her for all of it.
She鈥檚 an icon. This is a very small part of her story.
Watch A Very British Scandal from Boxing Day at 9pm on 大象传媒 One and 大象传媒 iPlayer
Read more interviews on the 大象传媒's Media Centre website
Listen to the Inside the Writersroom podcast interview with Sarah Phelps