Irish actress Nicola Coughlan as Penelope Featherington in Season 3 of the lavish period romance Bridgerton. NEW YORK – When the first season of the Netflix series Bridgerton premiered on Christmas Day, Amanda Vickery sat at home with her three daughters and watched every episode. This was in 2020, in the midst of England’s lockdown, and she remembers thinking, “Thank goodness for this escape.
” That she could lose herself that way is a particular compliment to Bridgerton, a flowered fantasy adapted from the Regency-set romance novels of Julia Quinn. Vickery, a professor at Queen Mary, University of London, is a historian. And Bridgerton, a show in which empowered women swoon to orchestral versions of Ariana Grande’s songs, takes a rather liberal approach to history.
Watching at home, Vickery did not imagine she would work on Bridgerton, but for this third season, the second instalment of which arrived on June 13, she served as its historical consultant, succeeding her friend and colleague Hannah Greig, a professor emerita at Royal Holloway, University of London. Does a show that repurposes Coldplay’s song Yellow as a wedding march really require historians? Yes. Several.
“We’re aware that Bridgerton isn’t aiming for documentary accuracy,” Vickery said during a recent video call, with Greig in an adjoining window. “It is a fantasy, but it’s a fantasy that’s grounded in an understanding of period.” Her role, as she sees it, is to point out potential .
