The premise was simple: take five modern men and five modern women and transport them back to the 1811 to a nine week long country house party - complete with servants, chaperons, the right clothing and no indoor plumbing.
The setting was truly glorious: Kentchurch Court, Herefordshire
(for more information about the history of the estate and the availability of tours see http://kentchurchcourt.co.uk/house.html
The men fitted right in! The role of the master of the house was taken by Chris Gorrell Brown who in the 21st century had just ended a relationship but is now the long standing partner of Martha Lane Stewart (who founded lastminute.com) and is in film production. Widely described as the Mr Darcy of the programme, because of the wet shirt incident and apparent lack of emotion, he was highly believable from the moment he donned his Regency attire.
The other gentlemen James Everett (a stage manager), John Carrington (a singer-song writer), Mark Foxsmith (a science teacher) and Jeremy Glover (a businessman and descendant of a naval captain who was at Trafalgar ... Mr Glover shows his fellow guests a letter from Nelson to his ancestor which truly impresses them) were equally at home in the period. This was probably because they were able to enjoy all the manly pursuits of the day such as fishing, boxing, sword-play ... and attending a Hell Fire Club event!
There was also a hermit on the estate - a role taken by the artist Zebedee Helm.
Unfortunately, the women were less believable and more annoying. I am not a great fan of reality tv as I question who's reality it is and whether anything can really be learned by watching the participants and for this programme it was the women who raised these questions once again. Practically without exception from the moment they arrived at the estate the women (be they the younger ones looking for a spouse or the older chaperons) did nothing but whinge about the restrictions of the time... as all the parties were given a mini-biography of their character to help them get into part and as it was quite apparent what was to be expected from 'travelling back in time' these restrictions should not have come as a surprise.
Real life, titled-but-penniless Countess Larushka Ivan-Zadeh was the highest ranked woman who wished to follow in the footsteps of Lady Caroline Lamb (cross-dressing and serving herself up at one of the dinners). No self-respecting chaperon in Regency England would have agreed to this unless she was confident that the action would bag her charge a spouse but as this was a tv programme it was allowed.
The other 'ladies' were Victoria Hopkins (a director in her family's business who described herself at the time as being not spoilt but spent the whole nine weeks, or so it seemed, proving this not to be the case as tantrums were the order of the day), Lisa Braund (the eldest of the young women, at 34, and a receptionist), Hayley Cornick (a trainee-headhunter), Francesca Martin (a recent graduate) and, as a sudden arrival to the house party, Tanya Samuel (a fashion designer and sister of the singer Seal).
Any programme of this nature is always going to be artificial as we carry too much baggage with us and, for women at least, so much has changed but I do think that the producers of the programme put too many obstacles in the way to make this a true representation of life at the time. For instance, the women were way too old - in Regency England they would have been poor relations/companions, married or widowed. They certainly wouldn't have been on the look-out for their first husbands. Yes, the occupations available for the women were not as wide-ranging as for men but I did not see any example of helping others in the neighbourhood (the closest to this was taking food to the hermit which didn't happen too often), riding, interacting with the servants (eg one of the chaperons was also the hostess yet we saw no evidence of her discussing menus etc with the housekeeper) and so on. Nor was there a connection between the women - in most instances a country house party would have been made up of individuals who knew each other either through a family connection or because they had just spent the previous Season getting to know each other at the various events.
The chaperons weren't much better. Only one seemed to play along with the notion of finding her charge a husband (an activity which was not appreciated by the young lady in question). The others seemed to spend all their time bickering or flirting with the men. Mr Gorrell Brown had to step in more than once to resolve an issue which the chaperons, and in particular, Mrs Rodgers who was also the hostess, should have dealt with. In addition, possibly at the prompting of the tv producers it was the host who came up with activities such as the gentleman serving the servants at dinner.
Only with the arrival of special guests who discussed poetry, the Battle of Waterloo and science was the programme raised above any other reality programme.
Don't get me wrong I did enjoy it but it is purely a tv programme. If you are really wanting to learn more about what it was like to live at the time you are better off reading the book which accompanied the series or any number of letters/journals, even contemporary works of fiction, which are available (and I don't just been Jane Austen)!
Would I like to go back in time and live in Regency England?
Putting aside the bad sanitation, the adulterated food, the lack of equality and so on yes I would like to go back to live in Georgian/Regency England (providing I had some money naturally!) not least because everyone knew what was expected of them. I don't see the world through rose-coloured spectacles but I do believe that we reached the pinnacle of human existence then because so much we take for granted today was discovered or created then be it the commencement of modern medicine, the discovery of Uranus, the foundation of a more equitable society, changes in the way court proceedings took place etc etc
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