A Very British Scandal

What appealed to me 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."

Introduction to A Very British Scandal, by Sarah Phelps

In the summer of 1993, I was living in a cockroach-infested flat and earning my rent selling advertising space in magazines, a job I was so bad at it was almost a talent. On the table next to mine, was a guy who worked on a Royal magazine, very camp and very funny and every morning, we’d tear through the papers looking for leads. One morning, we were doing exactly this and he suddenly said, "Oh, she’s dead!" I said, "Who?" And he said "The Dirty Duchess," and off my blank look said "Oh, come on, Sarah, you must have heard of the Dirty Duchess" - and that was the beginning.

There was a photograph to accompany the obituary, a frail, bird-like woman glaring out from under a giant sculpted black wig with a restrained imperious fury, there were details of her like of death, beauty, style and privilege, her many affairs, her vicious divorce from her second husband, the Duke of Argyll, the notorious Polaroid photographs and the speculation about the identity of the Headless Man. Still, after all this time, the speculation about who he was. I wasn’t a writer at this time, I didn’t even know that I was going to be a writer but there was that little shiver in the blood of looking at the woman in her obituary photo and wondering, "But who are you? What’s your story?"

And here we are, several decades later with A Very British Scandal, the tempestuous marriage and the bitter, brutal divorce of the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. It’s a story about a woman who refused to be slut shamed, who refused to go quietly and refused to do as she was told. She set fire to the expectation of her class, gender and her sex rather than go quietly. She put the private lives of the wealthy, the landed and the titled all over the front pages, not the untouchable great and good, but bare forked animals. Judge Wheatley’s three-hour long indictment of Margaret’s character, her sexual morals, destroyed her and meant that even when she’d died, two telesales people in North London would talk about the 'Dirty Duchess’ - but I think she’s heroic.

And she was honourable. Even before the nature of the photographs were made evident, Margaret was accused of having more than 80 lovers. She could have defended herself - some were single friends in extra-marital affairs and others, if she’d been honest about them, would have been sent to prison for being gay. But Margaret never betrayed her friends. That’s honour. She was spoiled, troubled, complex, demanding, infuriating, beautiful, stylish, silly, generous, vain, bloody-minded, very funny and brave. I love her for all of it.

She’s an icon. This is a very small part of her story.

Sarah Phelps - 9 December 2021

Production Notes for A Very British Scandal

Written by Sarah Phelps (The Pale Horse; Dublin Murders), A Very British Scandal focuses on the divorce of the Duke (Paul Bettany) and Duchess of Argyll (Claire Foy), one of the most notorious, extraordinary and brutal legal cases of the 20th century.

Famed for her charisma, beauty and style, Margaret, Duchess of Argyll, dominated the front pages, as a divorce featuring accusations of forgery, theft, violence, drug-taking, secret recording, bribery and an explicit polaroid picture - all played out in the white-hot glare of the 1960s media.

A Very British Scandal turns this scandal inside out in order to explore the social and political climate of post-war Britain, looking at attitudes towards women, and asking whether institutional misogyny was widespread at the time. As her contemporaries, the press, and the judiciary sought to vilify her, Margaret kept her head held high with bravery and resilience, refusing to go quietly as she was betrayed by her friends and publicly shamed by a society that revelled in her fall from grace.

Produced by Blueprint Pictures, A Very British Scandal will premiere on BBC One and BBC iPlayer in the UK and be available on Amazon Prime Video in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Sony Pictures Television are the international distributors and brokered the deal with Amazon Studios.

Filming took place across the United Kingdom earlier this year.

A Very British Scandal will air on Boxing Day at 9pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer and continue over the next two consecutive nights. All episodes will be available as a boxset to stream from 26 December on BBC iPlayer.

HW

Interview with Claire Foy - Margaret Campbell, the Duchess of Argyll

Tell us about the Duchess of Argyll.

The Duchess of Argyll was famous before she became that title, she was an ‘It Girl’ and a debutante. The year that Margaret was presented to court was the year it was all about fashion and romance. She came out when she was young - at 16. She just loved everything to do with society and being in amongst it. She was special. She very famously married the Duke of Argyll and became aristocracy for a brief period.

Do you think she always wanted to be aristocracy?

I don’t personally know if she did, I think we have attempted in our story to insinuate that in a way. British society at that time were the height of social pinnacle. Margaret was new money; her dad had worked really hard and she had the best of everything. I don’t think she ever doubted in her life that she deserved everything; she was a social climber in a way but she wasn’t hungry for it. I don’t think she would have tried to be something to make herself worth it, she knew she was.

What did Ian represent to Margaret?

In the story that we are telling, which is the only one I can really go on and the way we have made sense of it, is that Ian is a Duke and that’s deeply attractive to her. In this period of time, Margaret is not easily bored but has met every type of person in her circle. She loved entertaining - actors, politicians and collected people. In Ian, she meets someone who is different, not like everyone else, who makes her laugh and who is arm candy. He’s very handsome and the ‘un-gettable man’. He is the one you want to be able to change; married twice before and she wants to succeed where two other women have failed. She falls in love with Inveraray castle and sees it as so romantic. She was hopelessly romantic and sees the castle as a dream. But the dream goes terribly wrong.

What did Ian see in Margaret?

In our story, he famously married women for money. He needed it for his dissolute lifestyle but also for the castle, especially when he inherited the title. She believes in him and the idea of their life together and I don’t think he had had that before. Her money can make everything he wants happen. She is a star maker. I also think both of them are ultimately deeply damaged and flawed, and that bring out the worst in each other. I think that’s the reason why there is such chemistry but also what pulls them apart in the end.

What goes wrong in the relationship?

They are toxic from the beginning. Margaret is very high-octane and his life is very much about alcohol and his addictions. She naively went into the relationship and didn’t want to find out anything else about him, but also vice versa. It’s fascinating in a way as I don’t think I’ve ever been in a drama where both of the people are so openly flawed. They don’t try and lessen their snobbery, their naivety or any of those things. They do love each other and it is, in its own way, a love story, and 10 years after they divorced, Ian died. I would like to think there was some sort of romantic unfinished relationship. They saw each other at their worst and I think there is something in that.

What was Margaret’s attitude towards her sexuality?

There’s been so many books written about Margaret and so many rumours about her. She even wrote her own book but in that she doesn’t refer to her sexual life - as why would she? Most people have a sex life but they don’t go on about it all the time, nor should they have to. Margaret’s sexuality seems to have become another personality or something outside of herself, which I find that really bizarre and strange. Calling her the ‘Dirty Duchess’ is so misogynistic and I would like to think things have changed, but I don’t think they have.

Factually, there’s no way of knowing what she felt about who she was in that way. In this story, what I’m keen on is how easily she fell in love and how she kept letters and mementos of her lovers. In a way, I think that was the romantic side of her, and her sexuality was linked to that. But also in this story, no one should have the right to know that side of her. It’s no one’s business and it never was. It’s straight misogyny. It’s like Anne Boleyn - she had six fingers, she couldn’t have been clever and intelligent - she had to have been a witch.

What was your reaction to the scripts and why did you want to be a part of this?

Sarah writes a very good script; it’s written like a novel and it makes complete sense. I was really interested in how much she wanted to tell the story of Margaret, and then I spoke to Anne, the director, who was so talented, and I wanted to be directed by a female as it's only happened a few times in my career. She wanted to make something quite dark, which I thought was an interesting balance to tread.

Tell us about the look of Margaret?

We had such a short preparation time on this, and the costume designer, Ian Fulcher, and hair and make-up designer, Catherine Scoble, are both so talented. They have a real eye for detail. The difficulty is that you are playing a real person but not many people know about her. In the archive we have of her, her hair is set and the costume is done in a particular way, but if you try and interpret that into a modern audience they aren’t going to think it’s overly glamorous - people would wonder why she has a tartan skirt and some flats on. It would translate completely wrong. But, also, I’m not her. I don’t have her face or her body so you have to change things and manipulate things to fit the person. What we all decided together was that I had to look expensive. In everyday life, I don’t, so they had to help me!

What was it like shooting in Inveraray Castle?

It was amazing. I can’t believe we were actually able to shoot there. It was surreal as we met the current Duke of Argyll and we were in the grounds and room that our characters were in. It particularly helped me as Margaret loves Inveraray and the castle is another character in the show. To actually be there, I completely understood why she loved it and fell head over heels with Scotland and the castle. I understand why she risked a lot to keep it, as it is such a beautiful place.

Why does this story have a modern relevance?

It’s depressing as I don’t think a lot has changed. I hope that it allows a woman who was judged, ridiculed, belittled, manipulated and taken advantage of by the legal system, to at least have that shown. I think that the law doesn’t particularly treat women very well at all and this is just one example of how the odds were not stacked in her favour. She was an interesting woman and the more stories about interesting women, the better.

Tell us about working with Paul Bettany.

I just love him. He entirely made the job for me, he was a complete ally. He just made it a team for me. He’s the most amazing actor, he put such thought and care into what he does and Anne pushed him in directions that most actors wouldn’t be able to do in one moment's notice, but he was able to change his performance in one second, which is a real gift. He’s just wicked in every way.

Can you sum up what is A Very British Scandal is?

The premise is that it is an untold story of something that was a scandal. It exploded in a way that now, in the present day, we seem to have forgotten about. That’s interesting in itself as these things that seem so serious at the time, on the front of the newspapers, and no one really remembers it at all. You get to see behind it and ask the questions such as what may actually had gone on at the time and how it affected the individuals. What you want is the distance taken away and to realise that at the centre of every big thing - or every divorce - is two people who were in love with each other but their hearts got broken.

Interview with Paul Bettany - Ian Campbell, the 11th Duke of Argyll 

What kind of a man is Ian? 

I think Ian displayed incredibly cruel and at times, violent behaviour. I think Ian was damaged by many things, one of them being him held in a prisoner of war camp. His job was to absorb the punishment for prisoners that he had helped facilitate their escape. When he came back from the war, he was six stone and I don’t think he was in a particularly happy place. I don’t know what it was, whether he was suffering with some sort of undiagnosed PTSD but he was self-medicating with alcohol, amphetamines and barbiturates.

Where does Margaret find Ian at the beginning and what attracts them?

She finds him on a train. Apparently it is true that he tipped the porter so he could be sitting by Margaret as she was a superstar. He tells her a story of when he first saw her at the Café de Paris and it’s been verified that he said the moment he saw her, he said to the person he was with, that’s the girl I’m going to marry. The person he was with was his ex-wife so that says a lot about him…

He uses that to charm Margaret. Margaret was incredibly beautiful and Ian has needs, which are largely financial. I also think that, well certainly in our story, these two people really recognise each other as fellow travellers and kindred spirits; they complete each other in a strange way. Some people meet at the very best bit of themselves and some meet at the very worse of themselves. But they complete each other and have a bond.

What do you think Margaret saw in Ian?

I think it’s a question that is best asked of Claire, who is playing her brilliantly as I’m sure she has lots of ideas about that, but in our story, I think it was because she had her pick of anyone she wanted, yet picked this broken man who was very charismatic. I think whatever was happening with the other men in her life that this felt very different.

Why do you think did they fall out of love?

I think it is hard to stay in a relationship with a sociopath. I think Ian has a hole in the bottom of his bucket which means he can never quite be full. I think he falls in love with her gaze and the way that he’s reflected back upon himself by her. Of course, as you get to know people it becomes less and less easy and becomes harder to reflect back the perfect image that they want and he starts to see himself as he is. This is again, this is our interpretation and our version of the story.

How does Ian manipulate the media for his own benefit?

The press was rabid and incredibly cruel to Margaret and if you read the old stories back, the misogyny is extraordinary. If this were happening now she would be seen in a much different light. Her father was a working-class man who became a billionaire and she was the debutante of the year. She was a star. But the one thing she didn’t have was a ticket into the aristocracy. The narrative of working-class Scot to aristocracy in one generation was very appealing to him and to his daughter. People wanted to be around her, she was fabulous. They wanted to go to her parties and be photographed with her.

Why is this such a fascinating era for British society?

Post-war Britain is a fascinating time. A lot of the aristocracy funds were running out and people were supplementing their private wealth with income from jobs. Certainly Ian’s expectation is a little more old fashioned than that.

Were you familiar with the original story?

In passing I was, but not really. It’s been fascinating to get into and also the porn shaming of this woman. The idea of a husband doing that is so distasteful and cruel. It’s so shocking to think that it happened at that time. It still happens and it’s appalling.

What drew you to the project?

I thought the scripts were pithy. Sarah writes in a very muscular fashion and I loved the two of them. ‘Loved’ might be the wrong word - more fascinated by the two of them, and I relished the opportunity of delving into who Ian might be and who they might be together. I can’t stress enough how much the idea of working with Claire Foy was appealing. I think she’s a treasure of the nation, absolutely extraordinary. The ease she has in front of the camera is a lesson to literally any actor. Her facility of understanding the story and breaking down what is going to be felt and understood by the audience is literally second to none.

What was it like working with Claire?

She really makes me laugh which is a great thing when making something like this, something which has a lot of really difficult scenes.

What was it that drew you to playing Ian?

I have a binary response to my work. I just made Wandavision for Disney and Marvel and in that, the character that I play is warmth personified. That Jimmy Stuart, Tom Hanks everyman. The opportunity to do something so opposite was too much temptation for me to resist.

What archive materials or references did you use to find the character of Ian?

There was a brilliant research team at Blueprint Pictures who found one radio interview where you can hear Ian’s voice. They found one extraordinary film of him being interviewed and it is amazing. His eyes are blinking very slowly and has a very considerate and slow way of delivery. Also, I read a very good book on the subject of the trial, called The Three Strand Pearl Necklace, and to understand the chronology of events was really useful.

Do you think this story is relevant today?

It’s an important question and is an easier question for Claire, Anne and Sarah to answer because the show is from a female perspective and the lead is the Duchess. A lot of Ian’s actions are an expression of his misogyny and a lot of media reaction is how the country turned their back on Margaret, which is an extreme display of double standard.

What was it like working with Anne?

A Very British Scandal is entirely different in tone, I think [to A Very English Scandal]. But Anne was so convincing and by that point, I’d seen a lot of her film and TV work. She continued to surprise me on set. I don’t want to speak for Claire but I see it there too - Anne makes decisions for us in scenes that feel so leftfield, but it is fascinating to see her at work.

Where did you film? Any favourite locations?

Inveraray Castle for two weeks was beautiful - the weather was extraordinary. I think Anne was depressed as she almost wanted misty Scotland but then the two weeks we were there, it was Costa del Scotland.

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.

Programme Information

• Episode one
• Episode two
• Episode three