Channel 4's new adaptation of Barbara Taylor Bradford's 1979 novel 'A Woman of Substance' is a lavishly absurd, cliché-packed tribute to simpler times. The eight-part miniseries, written by Katherine Jakeways and Roanne Bardsley, aims to rival Disney+'s 'Rivals' with its escapist melodrama set in the world of fashion and revenge.
Brenda Blethyn stars as the older Emma Harte, a multimillionaire grande dame who has cast off her drab 'Vera' garb for a gorgeous silver-grey bouffant wig and lavish wardrobe. The story opens in the late 1970s with Emma facing a crisis: leaked medical records suggest she is unwell, causing her company's shares to plummet. She marches into her steel-and-marble headquarters (standing in for New York) and orders her minions to 'control the narrative' with press releases.
The plot kicks off with a flashback to 1911, where young Emma (Jessica Reynolds) is a serving wench at a manor house owned by the Fairley family. Her dying mother urges her to 'get out and get on' in a deathbed scene of unashamed cliché. At the house, Emma navigates sexual tension, drunken wives, and her own burgeoning dressmaking skills, which hint at her future business acumen.
The cast includes Emmet J Scanlan as Mr Adam Fairley, Leanne Best as his dipsomaniac wife Adele, and Niall Wright as the overlooked good man Mac O'Neill. The first episode alone packs in enough melodrama to satisfy fans of 80s television excess, with revenge as Emma's stated life goal.
