When BBC drama A Very English Scandal<\/a>, which charts the extraordinary story of former MP Jeremy Thorpe and his ex-lover Norman Scott premiered in 2018, it was met with high praise from both critics and viewers, courtesy of Russell T Davies\u2019 storytelling prowess and dazzling performances from Hugh Grant and Ben Whishaw. At the time, there was no hint it would spawn an anthology, but its hit status proved irresistible and prompted the broadcaster to do just that. A Very British Scandal was commissioned, with Davies making way for Sarah Phelps, whose most recent work includes The Dublin Murders<\/a> and several Agatha Christie adaptations.<\/p>\n When Phelps met with one of the executive producers to discuss who the subject of the unconnected follow-up could be, the name <\/span>Cynthia Payne was floated. Madame Cyn, as she was known, ran <\/span>a brothel in Streatham, south London, which was closed down in the 1980s. <\/span>But Phelps had someone else in mind: Margaret, Duchess of Argyll.<\/p>\n \u201cI hadn\u2019t even thought about it,\u201d she told RadioTimes.com<\/a>. \u201cIt just came out of my mouth.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Phelps first learned of Margaret when she was working in telesales advertising (\u201cI was s**t at it,\u201d she admitted). <\/span>One morning, herself and a colleague were flipping through the papers, looking for leads, when he was caught off-guard: \u201cOh, she\u2019s dead!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWho\u2019s dead?\u201d Phelps replied.<\/p>\n \u201cThe dirty Duchess, poor old girl. She\u2019s died.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Phelps was still none the wiser: \u201cWho?! Who is she<\/em>?!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOh, come on Sarah! You know!\u201d he sighed. \u201cEveryone\u2019s heard about the blowjob Duchess.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Prior to her marriage to Ian Campbell, Duke of Argyll, Margaret Sweeny, as she was then known, was first and foremost a wealthy British \u2018It girl\u2019 who could be found on every guest list at every party, gallery opening, gala (you name it) in town. Anytime the who\u2019s who of the London social scene \u2013 or wherever she happened to find herself \u2013 descended, there Margaret would be, right in the thick of it, often surrounded entirely by men, who flocked to her like moths to a flame. She had a vivacious spirit that was irresistible to those in her orbit, including Ian, although his true intentions are queried in the series.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a real Burton and Taylor aspect to them,\u201d said Phelps. \u201cThey were superstars of their world. Everybody talked about them. They were scandalous.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But beneath the seductive surface glamour, their love affair had a dark heart.<\/p>\n \u201cThey were both devastating to whoever they were having relationships with,\u201d added Phelps. \u201cT<\/span>hey were both fractured and profoundly troubled people.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Margaret had endured numerous emotional setbacks during her life, including several miscarriages and a stillbirth, and her relationship with her mother was perennially strained. She also fell 40-foot down a lift shaft and was swept away by a riptide\u00a0 \u2013 neither of which brought her life to a sudden and tragic end.<\/p>\n The Duke spent a traumatic five years as a prisoner of war in Germany and later developed a thirst for alcohol and prescription pills, which were said to have fuelled his near-constant callousness and myriad violent outbursts. It\u2019s unclear whether Ian ever truly loved Margaret, or was merely drawn to her father\u2019s deep pockets, which he had access to through his wife. Phelps\u2019 drama depicts a Duke who whenever he was refused money, would fly into a white-hot rage.<\/p>\n The fabric of the Duchess and Duke\u2019s romance was also steeped in mistruths. Margaret, especially, was said to be prone to fabrication, with one of her stunts, which involved Ian\u2019s children and their mother, further deepening the growing gulf between them. There were accusations of infidelity from both parties. But despite his commanding role in their turbulence, Ian\u2019s reputation barely suffered a scratch. The same, however, cannot be said for Margaret.<\/p>\n She came to be defined by her marriage to the Duke, which was an unmitigated catastrophe and resulted in a brutal divorce which played out on the public stage. It also left Margaret saddled with the aforementioned monikers after photographs which Ian stole from her were used to bolster his case in court.<\/p>\n Even in death, she is still unable to shake them off. Ian, unsurprisingly, received no such nicknames.<\/p>\n Unlike so much of the discussion surrounding Margaret and Ian, Phelps was only ever captivated by the former.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of the conversation was about who the man had been,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd I thought, I don\u2019t care about him. Who are you [Margaret] after this huge scandal? Who are you<\/em>?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cShe\u2019s one of those kinds of characters, and you just put them behind your ear and wait.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The Crown<\/a>\u2018s Claire Foy and WandaVision<\/a>\u2018s Paul Bettany were drafted in to play the Duchess and Duke, but Phelps didn\u2019t write her leads with them \u2013 or anyone \u2013 in mind, an approach she never deviates from.<\/p>\n \u201cIf I\u2019m thinking about the actor, I\u2019m not thinking about the character,\u201d she explained. \u201cT<\/span>he characters that I\u2019m writing don\u2019t know that they\u2019re being scrutinised by executive producers. And they don\u2019t know that they\u2019re about to be played by an actor \u2013 so I have to think about them.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n Foy and Bettany are magnificent, with the pair showcasing some of their finest work to date. Not only have they captured what Phelps wrote on the page, they also supplied their own subtle details, which she couldn\u2019t possibly have accounted for, but which further enhanced the end product.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen Paul smiles, his top lip pulls back from his teeth in a very, very particular way that it is impossible to write,\u201d she said. \u201cIf I wrote a stage direction that said: \u2018His top lip pulls back from his teeth in a particular way and you are reminded that he is an apex predator\u2019, people would go, \u2018Sarah, have you lost your f**king mind?\u2019 But the actor brings that.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a moment where he smiles at Claire on the train. He is pure charm. And there\u2019s something about the way he smiles, which is simultaneously \u2018Yes, you would\u2019 and \u2018No, you absolutely mustn\u2019t\u2019. It\u2019s the intensity of those performances that you can hope for in your writing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The three-part series opens with the couple\u2019s divorce proceedings \u2013 the final chapter in their joint story \u2013 with Margaret set to take the stand for questioning. The narrative then jumps back to the moment the pair first met, when the cruelty and deception that came to define their relationship had not yet taken them in its vice-like grip.<\/p>\n \u201cThe chemistry of the two of them together created scorched earth,\u201d said Phelps. \u201cIt\u2019s like when you\u2019re thinking about performance and you\u2019re thinking about the chemistry between two particular actors, that\u2019s what you want to create, that absolutely you believe that these two people separately are dangerous enough. But together, they\u2019re a f**king bomb. And everybody should really stand back. It\u2019s going to be brutal, it\u2019s going to be ugly and actually, right from the first moment they meet, it can only ever end one way, which is pretty much mutually assured destruction.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cNobody wins. There\u2019s no winner that comes out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n But if we were to compare their respective statuses following the final judgement, it was undoubtedly Margaret who fared worse, because she was the woman, and she not only enjoyed her dalliances with her male admirers, she also claimed that it was a particular talent of hers \u2013 \u201cI like sex and am extremely<\/em> good at it,\u201d she says in the drama. And it really is as simple as that.<\/p>\n Our conversation naturally turned to other \u201ccomplex\u201d women in the public eye who have been \u201ccaught up in the gaze but haven\u2019t survived it\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou can remember those photos of [Amy Winehouse] reeling around Camden in a pair of men\u2019s pants clutching a giant bottle of Amaretto, with people pointing and laughing instead of saying, \u2018Doctors need to be called and we need to get this girl to a safe place\u2019,\u201d remembered Phelps.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cPaula Yates was hounded. Diana was hounded. We all remember the look in Britney\u2019s eyes as she turned to face the paparazzi before she shaved her head. <\/span>We haven\u2019t learned. There was this huge outcry when Diana died in that tunnel. No one\u2019s f**king learned a thing. No one\u2019s learned a thing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n During the press Q&A, Phelps revealed that she had \u201cthought a lot about\u201d Meghan Markle and the vitriol she\u2019s been subjected to by the press and public when writing the series.<\/p>\n \u201cI find it rebarbative,\u201d she added.<\/span><\/p>\n While A Very British Scandal is designed to entertain, which it certainly does, it\u2019s also evident from both watching the drama and listening to the passion with which Phelps talks about Margaret that this is television with a greater purpose.<\/p>\n \u201cI suppose what I\u2019d like for it to do is for people to consider the person behind the headline, the person behind the clickbait, because Margaret was clickbait in an age before clickbait. <\/span>She was clickbait, but there was a real human being.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat is the purpose of diminishing somebody through prurient ridicule and humiliation? What does it mean to do that to a person? <\/span>The clicks, the headlines, they\u2019re a lash to beat somebody with.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The drama does not paint Margaret as an innocent, and both Phelps and Foy have spoken at length about the many missteps that she made, but they have also emphasised that her behaviours were not born out of a vacuum.<\/p>\n \u201cI told as much as possible all the really significant aspects of her life that I thought were part of her \u2013 why she was in this relationship and why she couldn\u2019t back away, and why she did the things that she did,\u201d said Phelps. \u201cThese things don\u2019t happen out of nowhere. There\u2019s always a cultural and personal intimate context, an emotional landscape where people make the decisions that they make. It\u2019s about trying to see the whole person.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s also painfully transparent that the hammer blow Margaret suffered from the court of law and public opinion was not remotely concerned with what it means to be good person, but with publicly shaming a woman who refused to go quietly.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you called her a feminist icon to her face, she\u2019d throw you out of her apartment,\u201d said Phelps. \u201c<\/span>She\u2019d throw a shoe at your head. But <\/span>I think she\u2019s an icon. I admire her very much.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A Very British Scandal is available to watch now on BBC iPlayer. The series is also airing on consecutive nights across BBC One. <\/strong>Find out what\u2019s on tonight with our\u00a0TV Guide<\/a>. Visit our\u00a0Drama<\/a>\u00a0hub for all the latest news.<\/strong><\/b><\/p>\n![\""A\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/3\/2021\/12\/Duchess-Margaret-2-d93de78.gif?quality=90&resize=620%2C413"\" "\\"\"Duchess-Margaret-\"\\"\/")
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<\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/source><\/picture><\/div> Loved this Big RT Interview? Read these:<\/strong><\/h3>\n