Interview with Anne Sewitsky - Director

What is A Very British Scandal?

It is series two of A Very English Scandal - so you take it as an anthology series and make another one. This scandal focuses on Margaret, the Duke of Argyll and their divorce case which was one of the most talked about cases in 1963. They were part of high society, very privileged and it was their dirty work that became public and many people spoke about it as the first shaming case.

Margaret was a star. She was photographed on the street, people stared at her and the marriage made her a Duchess which was very attractive for publicity and they were a sought-after couple. What we see in our story is their relationship, marriage and the bumps. It is quite grim and destructive. They are both destructive people who end up doing quite cruel things to each other and that is made public.

Why do you think this story is still so relevant?

I think it is relevant in the way of looking back and seeing a woman who thought she was equal, and that the fight was equal, but in the end she loses because she’s a woman and because she can be shamed. They did terrible things to her, such as trying to commit her into a mental hospital, saying how she was a highly sexualised woman because of the way she was acting. It’s important to be able to look back as I don’t think the world is like that now. In our story I feel that we look mainly on the relationship and the love story between them but the result of that is that she’s shamed.

What appealed to you about this project?

It was the craziness of the whole thing, the absurdity of what they did to each other and how far they went. There was lots of space to create strong emotional characters between two people who are out to kill each other or love each other.