Based on Stella Tillyard’s bestseller that “made history sexy again” (London Sunday Times), this encore presentation of Aristocrats tells the true story of the bewitching Lennox sisters: Caroline, Emily, Louisa, and Sarah. Great-granddaughters of King Charles II and his French mistress, they live up to their mixed heritage by tempting scandal with their unconventional ideas and daring affairs.
A sweeping saga of a noble family’s disgrace and fall, spanning two generations, Aristocrats is a dazzling adaptation, an acclaimed family chronicle set against the spectacular backdrop of palaces, country estates and ballrooms of eighteenth-century England and Ireland.
What producer David Snodin (Great Expectations) finds most striking is that the story is absolutely true. “As far as characters and plot, Aristocrats could be a classic novel. But it isn’t. It actually happened.” Aristocrats is a BBC America and WGBH Boston coproduction.
Shown on PBS Masterpiece Theatre.
Starring Julian Fellowes, Alun Armstrong, Jodhi May, Anne-Marie Duff, Serena Gordon and Ben Daniels.