The Mitford sisters — Nancy, Pamela, Diana, Unity, Jessica, and Deborah — will be brought to life by the BritBox original series “Outrageous,” which debuts on the streaming service on Wednesday, June 18.
A first look featurette shared exclusively with TheWrap shows the sisters at their best and their worst, including Unity’s relationship with Adolf Hitler (which began at the height of his power in Nazi Germany and lasted through his death) and her sister Diana’s condemnation of it.
In modern terms, the Mitfords were almost the Kardashians of their day. Initially famous for being themselves, the sisters each embarked on their own careers to various degrees of success, though without a Kris Jenner-esque matriach keeping everyone on task (Muv, the mother the Mitfords, was much more traditional).
Watch the clip below:
“Outrageous” debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival this month. The show’s full tagline reads, “Based on Mary Lovell’s definitive biography, ‘The Mitford Girls’, ‘Outrageous’ is the story of six aristocratic sisters who refused to play by the rules, their often-scandalous lives making headlines around the world.”
“Set against the gathering storm clouds of the 1930s, masked by the decadence, frivolity and lavishness of British high society, ‘Outrageous’ will bring the full, uncensored story of the Mitford sisters to the screen for the first time – a story of family bonds and betrayals, public scandal, political extremism, love, heartache and even imprisonment. The show explores how and why these women, unwilling to conform, were so ahead of their time – and what drove them to take their very different, complex and often dangerous paths. A family saga like no other, this is the Mitfords as they really were: unapologetic, outrageous and utterly human.”
The cast includes Bessie Carter (Nancy Mitford), James Purefoy (David Freeman Mitford [“Farve”]), Anna Chancellor (Sydney Freeman Mitford [“Muv”]), Joanna Vanderham (Diana Mitford), Shannon Watson (Unity Mitford), Zoe Brough (Jessica Mitford), Orla Hill (Deborah Mitford), Isobel Jesper Jones (Pamela Mitford), Toby Regbo (Thomas Mitford), Joshua Sasse (Oswald Mosley), and Calam Lynch (Bryan Guinness).
“Outrageous” is produced by Elizabeth Kilgarriff, Matthew Mosley, Craig Holleworth, Robert Schildhouse, Jess O’ Riordan, Stephen Nye, and Helen Perry and distributed by Firebird Pictures, BBC Studios, and UKTV. The series is co-commissioned by BritBox and UKTV, produced by Firebird Pictures and distributed by BBC Studios.
