Should period dramas reflect modern sensibilities?

Many playwrights, filmmakers and novelists disagree. To them, history is a stimulus to artistic licence, material to be exploited and abused for dramatic effect. Their considerations are audience appeal, profit and, often, politics. They leave it to historians to worry about truth. This, to me, is mendacity.

I have always found ‘faction’ (in which real events are the basis for fiction) hard to stomach. I can appreciate ‘docudrama’, which dramatises the events, or the novels of Hilary Mantel, as attempts to deepen our understanding of the past. Mantel insisted that her goal was always to be as accurate as the facts allowed. She did not deliberately create false events. The same was not true of The Crown and its much-documented faking of stories. The fact the team behind the show took such pains to cast actors that resembled their real-life counterparts simply added a patina of reality to the fabrication. The result was an audience ignorant of what was true or false.

• Read more | Hilary Mantel on the secrets of successful historical fiction

I appreciate that history – as with journalism – involves selection, and that selection itself can be motivated by a desire to twist the truth. Each age puts pressure on historians to select material in a manner that respects the sensitivity or bias of nations, groups or individuals. The duty of the historian is to see behind such bias. The task is to reveal what happened, why and how.

In an age of artificial intelligence and online ‘deep fakery’, the truth has never been more precious. The world of fiction has no need to be a parasite on history: it has all of human imagination to supply it with plots. Every work that claims to be ‘based on real events’ should, in my view, be vetted for lies, and should display a large ‘T’ or ‘NT’ – true or not true. Artistic licence should not be a licence to deceive.

Simon Jenkins is an author, Guardian columnist and BBC broadcaster. His books include A Short History of London: The Creation of a World Capital (Viking, 2019)

"Streaming services are bringing dramas to wider and more diverse audiences than ever" – Amanda-Rae Prescott

Period dramas should of course reflect modern sensitivities and changing views of the past. They are, after all, made first and foremost to entertain audiences. They are not documentaries about particular people, periods or places, and viewers are well aware that such dramas are based on creative interpretations of real events or of novels, plays or other works of fiction.

Social media and streaming services are bringing period dramas to wider and more culturally diverse international audiences than ever before. For example, the Hallmark Channel’s recent adaptation of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility successfully recreated the Regency period while having a predominantly Black cast and core creative team.

For too long the idea that modernisation is inherently damaging to history itself has been used as an excuse to gate-keep historical drama based on race, ethnicity and other forms of identity, even though we know that historical records often excluded or marginalised the stories and experiences of some groups of people.

• Read more | What’s next for period drama?

Casting controversies surrounding Channel 5’s Anne Boleyn and the BBC’s upcoming Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light [both of which employ colour-blind casting] have, in my view, less to do with the substance of life in the Tudor era than with a refusal to accept the presence of actors of colour in some forms of historical drama.

Some critics of modernised period dramas have also conflated different types of show: adaptations of fiction and biographies targeted at teenagers and young adults on the one hand, and those aimed at wider, adult audiences on the other. Recent biographical drama Dickinson, based on the life of 19th-century US poet Emily Dickinson, attracted criticism due to its focus on its lead character’s personal life and emotions. Its support of the theory that Dickinson was queer drew particular ire. Yet it was aimed not at historians but at a young audience drawn to its interpretation of historical events and figures in non-textbook ways.

The view that modernisation is a negative force has also been used to gate-keep screenwriters influenced by other genres of fiction and pop culture. But modern language and music can enhance a period drama’s ability to connect historical themes to contemporary audiences. The 2016–17 drama Underground, for instance, set in the Southern US and following the stories of enslaved people in Georgia, used rap and hip-hop to evoke its characters’ quests for freedom and justice.

Amanda-Rae Prescott is a Black and Multiracial freelance journalist from New York City who reports on period dramas for American audiences

"The most exciting dramas challenge our perception of the familiar and revered" – Madeleine Pelling

Period drama has always reflected the concerns of its era. Equally, it can effect tangible change. In 2010, Downton Abbey ushered in a surge of interest in country houses, bolstering Britain’s heritage industry. Likewise, during the 2014 independence referendum in Scotland, then prime minister David Cameron discussed with TV executives the possible effect that Outlander [which sees a 20th-century nurse transported back to 18th-century Scotland] might have on voters.

With this great power comes responsibility. One of the biggest complaints made about period drama is inaccuracy. In our moment of fake news and AI, should we worry about shows that seemingly set aside the truth and the effect they might have? Certainly, their relevance to contemporary culture has never been so pertinent.

• Read more | Period dramas should not be judged on historical accuracy, say historians

For some viewers of The Crown, for instance, depiction of the tabloid harassment of Diana, Princess of Wales is all the more charged thanks to media treatment of Meghan Markle and Kate Middleton. Similarly, while many lauded Bridgerton for its diversity and its representation, some historians argue that the show obscures histories of slavery, the effects of which are still being felt today.

But despite our ability to immediately fact-check the details of shows online, we should pause weighing in on what’s an increasingly polarised debate. It’s easy to dismiss so-called mistakes without really considering the expertise and, crucially, choices behind a show. Many are based on the research of historians (2017 drama Harlots is based on Hallie Rubenhold’s 2005 non-fiction book The Covent Garden Ladies, for example, while Mike Leigh’s 2018 film Peterloo was based on work by Jacqueline Riding), but they are just that – based on. There might also be on-set historical advisors, but they are just one cog in a creative machine alongside scriptwriters, directors, actors, costume designers and more, all working to tell a story.

We are becoming more lenient, too. Gone are the days of media storms in anachronistic teacups. In my view, the most exciting period dramas are those that take ideas from the past and reconstitute them, challenging our perception of the familiar and revered. They show us where we have come from, but also where we’re going. They are, ultimately, art, and ought to be viewed as such. What’s more – as this piece proves – they get us talking.

Madeleine Pelling is an author, historian and broadcaster. Her books include Writing on the Wall: Graffiti, Rebellion and the Making of Eighteenth-Century Britain (Profile, 2024)

"The attitudes we think of as modern have been fought over in every century before our own" – Fern Riddell

In my view, protests about diverse casts, LGBTQ inclusion, or the portrayal of independent female characters in period dramas are often made by people clinging to a sanitised version of the past they remember from childhood. Open any good history book today, however, and you’ll find that diverse communities have always been a part of life in Britain. From black British Tudors to transgender spies, suffragette terrorists and LGBTQ icons, the nation’s history has never been one-dimensional.

One of the easiest ways to time-travel back to explore that rich cultural legacy is through a series of novels on which one of the most famous period dramas is based: John Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga. It begins in the 1880s and tells the intricate history of a wealthy London family across several generations. Galsworthy grew up in the Victorian era and experienced it first-hand, and the series is an incredible exploration of female sexuality, independence and agency, set against the backdrop of the fiercely patriarchal 19th century.

In its pages we meet Young Jolyon, a man in his fifties, who declares: “I am what they call a ‘feminist’, I believe.” Irene, the titular heroine, leaves her sexually abusive marriage to live independently.

Watching The Forsyte Saga on television [on the BBC in the 1960s and ITV in the 2000s] you might assume that these are simply modern day attitudes, projected back by a screenwriter – but they aren’t at all. Instead, Galsworthy was portraying the world around him, and a society he knew intimately.

The attitudes we think of as modern – equality, identity and representation – have been fought for and argued over by people in every century before our own. The only disservice drama can do to its audience is to attempt to whitewash or sanitise the lives of people in the past.

But our true history, for authors and screenwriters alike, is much more exciting than any nostalgic invention.

Fern Riddell is a cultural historian, presenter and author. She was a historical consultant for the TV drama Ripper Street

This article was first published in the July 2024 issue of BBC History Magazine