Despite being set almost a century ago, Outrageous couldn’t feel more timely

Outrageous banks on viewers’ familiarity with escapist period pieces to make its characters’ attitudes toward fascism, whether dismissive or fervent, feel even more unsettling. Sure, the banality of evil can look like a German office drone yawning as he tallies up body counts. But it can also look like a smitten teenager obsessing over a brief moment of eye contact with Hitler. Evil can also look sexy, like when the camera lovingly plays over Mosley’s toned biceps while he plots the violent overthrow of British democracy.

Despite being set almost a century ago, Outrageous couldn’t feel more timely. You might shiver in recognition when, in a breakfast-table debate about the horrors of the Nazi regime, Sydney remarks, “Unity’s letters don’t mention any atrocities. She says it’s lovely there.” Nancy, meanwhile, is an all-too-familiar figure in the age of Trumpism: a privileged woman willfully shutting out the harsh realities of the world until they become impossible to ignore. Smartly, the show adds a Jewish character (portrayed by Will Attenborough) to give Nancy a few much-needed reality checks.

At the heart of the series is Nancy’s relationship with Diana, which grows increasingly strained as the latter becomes ever more devoted to Mosley’s cause. It feels like the interwar equivalent of watching a loved one fall down the QAnon rabbit hole, and it’s echoed in the dissolution of Verity and Jessica’s relationship as they devote themselves to polar-opposite ideologies. 

With her dry wit and knowing glances at the camera, Carter’s Nancy is essentially the Fleabag of the 1930s. Vanderham makes us sympathize with Diana even as we’re repulsed by her, all while oozing femme-fatale glamour. Though she’s the quietest of the bunch, Brough brings a gravity to Jessica that suggests her devotion to communism is more than just a phase. But the series’ breakout is Watson, who has to tread a fine line in playing a guileless teen girl who transforms into a true monster. The feverish look she gets when she so much as glimpses a framed portrait of Hitler is horrifying, but it’s also recognizable: If Unity were a Gen Z-er, she might have turned those same heart eyes on, say, Jacob Elordi rather than the most evil man in human history. 

Maybe the most impressive thing about Outrageous is that it never judges the often repellent actions of its stranger-than-fiction subjects—only Nancy does, with the pithiness of a well-to-do lady novelist and the blind eye of a loving sister. Watching the Mitfords make terrible choice after terrible choice is like seeing a train wreck in slow motion while sipping on a flute of champagne.

Outrageous premieres June 18 on BritBox