#105 A Queen For Our Wild Faction
14/04/24 19:50
It’s finally the end of the Easter holidays and I’m so tired. They lasted approximately four months, and I’ve squeezed in swimming, table tennis, walks, museums, made 870,000 meals and nine thousand packed lunches and six billion snacks, and I am done. In the evenings, I’ve wanted something to escape to – something riotous and entertaining and funny and FUN.
Along came Renegade Nell, and her bunch of miscreants. It’s Robin Hood meets Peter Pan meets Reacher meets The Avengers, and it’s a breath of fresh air (with added magic). This is a Sally Wainwright show so you know you’re in safe hands, but they’re jazz hands too, like she decided Happy Valley was just a bit too sad and she had to offer something genuinely glad. I’m a huge fan of Wainwright’s Gentleman Jack which put a boot up the backside of period drama – this does the same (it’s set in the early 1700s), but where Anne Lister wields money and nous, Nell Jackson channels more unworldly powers.
You know where you are from the starting pistol, in a magnificent opening scene that sets out its stall with style and flair. We’re in the middle of a highway robbery, and a witty one at that, the daylight robber in question being all charm and drollery. In wanders Nell, idly chewing a wheat stem, minding her own. Our dastardly - but terribly debonair – debaucher dares to challenge her, and she’s having none of it: ‘You don’t want to mess with me.’ Oh, but he does, and is promptly ground to dust. It’s a fabulous kick-off that makes you punch the air in triumph. Nell is a machine, fuelled by some breezy golden sprite who renders her invincible, able to deflect bullets and effortlessly rough-up ruffians. She’s Buffy and the Black Widow, Lara Croft and Eleven, but she also has the no-nonsense nonchalance, androgyny and swagger of Gentleman Jack. Louisa Harland, who plays Nell, is excellent, holding the ribbons of the show with lashings of panache.
There’s an element of mystery here though, because we know that Nell is Mrs Jackson, a widow, her husband dead on the battlefield. Who was Mr Jackson; why and when did she run off with him, disappointing her publican father; and when did this elusive daemon-sprite first accost her? There’s a rich and intriguing back story dangled but not indulged – Nell’s not one for introspection, being more inclined to roll up her sleeves and land a facer. Which is just as well, because she has to do that a lot.
Falsely accused of murdering the Tottenham equivalent of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Nell is forced to go on the run with her two sisters and the victim’s footman. Their merry band is joined by the suave aristo-turned-highwayman, Charles Devereux aka Isambard Tulley, and together they get up to all sorts of larks and japes, with Nell fortified by her Tinkerbell, Billy Blind. She becomes the nation’s most notorious highway(wo)man, a huge bounty on her head, sought in every county. The plot thickens, weaving in dark witchcraft and villainous toffs, treason and corruption, a juicy den of iniquity. They’re breaking paupers out of Newgate prison, and challenging newspaper magnates, and holding up the gentry oh-so-charmingly, all the while fending off the magical advances of the evil Earl of Poynton and his sidekick Lady Wilmot. Then it’s a race against time to save the dipsomaniac Queen Anne from a diabolical Jacobite plot - can Nell go from Most Wanted to Most Vaunted?
If this sounds a bit silly to you, well, it is. It’s gloriously, unrepentantly, magnificently and cleverly silly. BIG FIGHTS and GREAT OUTFITS and SHADY CHARACTERS and SORCERY - inject it into my veins and let me feast on all the fun. Everyone’s throwing themselves into it, and you know whatever scrape Nell gets into she’ll get herself out of it (just about) – good will triumph over evil (just about), the baddies will get their comeuppance (just about), and someone will make a witty quip about it (every time). Plus, the whole thing’s a huge Fuck You to our contemporary equivalent: those entitled Tories and their pandering right-wing rags. I couldn’t wish for more, apart from another series, pronto, and for a modern-day Nell to come along and avenge us all. Like Carol Vorderman, but with fists rather than figures.
In conclusion, if you’re looking for some escapist anti-capitalist insurrectionist feminist socialist jollification, then look no further – breathe in Billy’s bright sprite, sit back, and let the joy take hold.
Along came Renegade Nell, and her bunch of miscreants. It’s Robin Hood meets Peter Pan meets Reacher meets The Avengers, and it’s a breath of fresh air (with added magic). This is a Sally Wainwright show so you know you’re in safe hands, but they’re jazz hands too, like she decided Happy Valley was just a bit too sad and she had to offer something genuinely glad. I’m a huge fan of Wainwright’s Gentleman Jack which put a boot up the backside of period drama – this does the same (it’s set in the early 1700s), but where Anne Lister wields money and nous, Nell Jackson channels more unworldly powers.
You know where you are from the starting pistol, in a magnificent opening scene that sets out its stall with style and flair. We’re in the middle of a highway robbery, and a witty one at that, the daylight robber in question being all charm and drollery. In wanders Nell, idly chewing a wheat stem, minding her own. Our dastardly - but terribly debonair – debaucher dares to challenge her, and she’s having none of it: ‘You don’t want to mess with me.’ Oh, but he does, and is promptly ground to dust. It’s a fabulous kick-off that makes you punch the air in triumph. Nell is a machine, fuelled by some breezy golden sprite who renders her invincible, able to deflect bullets and effortlessly rough-up ruffians. She’s Buffy and the Black Widow, Lara Croft and Eleven, but she also has the no-nonsense nonchalance, androgyny and swagger of Gentleman Jack. Louisa Harland, who plays Nell, is excellent, holding the ribbons of the show with lashings of panache.
There’s an element of mystery here though, because we know that Nell is Mrs Jackson, a widow, her husband dead on the battlefield. Who was Mr Jackson; why and when did she run off with him, disappointing her publican father; and when did this elusive daemon-sprite first accost her? There’s a rich and intriguing back story dangled but not indulged – Nell’s not one for introspection, being more inclined to roll up her sleeves and land a facer. Which is just as well, because she has to do that a lot.
Falsely accused of murdering the Tottenham equivalent of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Nell is forced to go on the run with her two sisters and the victim’s footman. Their merry band is joined by the suave aristo-turned-highwayman, Charles Devereux aka Isambard Tulley, and together they get up to all sorts of larks and japes, with Nell fortified by her Tinkerbell, Billy Blind. She becomes the nation’s most notorious highway(wo)man, a huge bounty on her head, sought in every county. The plot thickens, weaving in dark witchcraft and villainous toffs, treason and corruption, a juicy den of iniquity. They’re breaking paupers out of Newgate prison, and challenging newspaper magnates, and holding up the gentry oh-so-charmingly, all the while fending off the magical advances of the evil Earl of Poynton and his sidekick Lady Wilmot. Then it’s a race against time to save the dipsomaniac Queen Anne from a diabolical Jacobite plot - can Nell go from Most Wanted to Most Vaunted?
If this sounds a bit silly to you, well, it is. It’s gloriously, unrepentantly, magnificently and cleverly silly. BIG FIGHTS and GREAT OUTFITS and SHADY CHARACTERS and SORCERY - inject it into my veins and let me feast on all the fun. Everyone’s throwing themselves into it, and you know whatever scrape Nell gets into she’ll get herself out of it (just about) – good will triumph over evil (just about), the baddies will get their comeuppance (just about), and someone will make a witty quip about it (every time). Plus, the whole thing’s a huge Fuck You to our contemporary equivalent: those entitled Tories and their pandering right-wing rags. I couldn’t wish for more, apart from another series, pronto, and for a modern-day Nell to come along and avenge us all. Like Carol Vorderman, but with fists rather than figures.
In conclusion, if you’re looking for some escapist anti-capitalist insurrectionist feminist socialist jollification, then look no further – breathe in Billy’s bright sprite, sit back, and let the joy take hold.
- Renegade Nell, 8 episodes, Disney+
