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Period Drama
by Faye Woods
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Book Presentation:
Maps out the dominant debates surrounding period drama through the twin frameworks of prestige and pleasure
• Responds to the recent boom in television drama in the UK, US and Europe and explores industrial change across early 21st century television
• Analysis shaped by considerations pleasure, the body, space and place, alongside established frameworks of heritage, nation, class, gender and costume
• Integrates industrial, aesthetic and ideological analysis to draw out the complexities of the genre
• Expands the canon beyond the established hits and critical favourites, drawing out the breadth of the field
Period drama is a genre of prestige and pleasure, realism and fantasy, spectacle and intimacy. It is embedded in national pasts but speaks to the present, tracing connections, continuities, and change. It reconstructs and reimagines the spaces and places of the past and considers how lives were shaped by the classed, raced and gendered structures of society. Period drama is invested in the bodily and emotional experience of the past, it delights in the intricacies and textures of clothing, the erotics of the gaze and moments of touch. It is often viewed as a genre of escape, nostalgia and traditionalism. Yet it has the potential to challenge dominant cultural narratives and explore under-represented histories, helping to reshape our understandings of our own histories. This book maps out the dominant debates surrounding television period drama. Through a series of themed programme case studies it charts the genre’s investments and preoccupations, considering its place within television industries and contemporary culture.
Case studies:
Indian Summers (Channel 4 2015-2016)Beecham House (ITV, 2019)Underground (WGN, 2016-2017)Shoulder to Shoulder (BBC2, 1974)The Mill (Channel 4, 2013-14)North & South (BBC1, 2004)Call the Midwife (BBC1, 2012-)The Marvelous Mrs Maisel (Amazon Prime Video, 2017- )The Deuce (HBO, 2017-19)Peaky Blinders (BBC2/BBC1, 2013-)Gentlemen Jack (BBC1, 2019)Pose (FX, 2018-2021)The Crimson Petal and the White (BBC2, 2011)Outlander (Starz, 2014-)Dickinson (Apple TV+, 2019-)
About the Author:
Faye Woods is Associate Professor in Film and Television at the University of Reading
Press Reviews:
With this lively and wide-ranging book, Woods blasts period drama into the 21st century. Organised thematically from 1980s to 2010s, Period Drama emphasises the genre’s hybridity and its capacity for spectacle and intimacy. Shoulder to Shoulder jostles with Mrs America, Underground with Outlander, Peaky Blinders with Pose in this vivid account.– Christine Geraghty, Honorary Professor, University of Glasgow
See the publisher website: Edinburgh University Press
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