Why Bath is banking on a Bridgerton tourism boom
Bath is poised to take advantage of ‘the Bridgerton effect’. Will the Government let the crowds come?
18 February 2021 • 12:38pm
Bath s Royal Crescent featured prominently in Netflix s Bridgerton. Can the city capitalise on its international showcase?
Credit: Netflix
Long before TV viewers worldwide became ardent fans of Netflix’s raunchy period drama - in fact, before most of us had even heard of it - Kathryn Davis, CEO of Visit Bath, was predicting a major Bridgerton bump. Although she wasn’t sure what the series would look like, or how much the city would appear, she was hopeful that the 2019 film shoot would showcase Bath well, “and we knew [producer] Shondaland’s track record.”
January 12, 2021
Facebook/Bath World Heritage Site
It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Regency period drama must be shot on location in the English city of Bath. And so, in opulent new Netflix series Bridgerton (the name of a family, not a place), Bath’s picturesque Georgian architecture stands in for London in 1813.
All the exterior shots of “Mayfair” were actually filmed against the honey stone facades of Alfred, Bath and Great Pulteney streets, as well as Beauford Square and Royal Crescent.
Based on the popular romance novels by Julia Quinn, the television series centres around two high society families, the sophisticated Bridgertons and the gauche Featheringtons, as their daughters aim to find eligible husbands during the London social season.
Phoebe Dynevor as Daphne Bridgerton and Regé-Jean Page as Simon Basset in “Bridgerton.” (Liam Daniel/Netflix/TNS)
What are Ariana Grande and Taylor Swift songs doing in ‘Bridgerton’?
If you’ve watched even a few minutes of “Bridgerton,” Netflix’s dishy new period piece, you probably noticed something a little familiar on the soundtrack.
The Regency drama created by Chris Van Dusen follows Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor), a young aristocratic woman on a quest for love in London high society. Along with the era-appropriate horse-drawn carriages and tightly bound corsets of 1813 England, the show has some anachronistic flourishes including orchestral arrangements of contemporary songs by Taylor Swift and Billie Eilish.
Lady Featherington is a character on Bridgerton.
Netflix
Whistledown gives a brief rundown of the main players at the beginning of episode one, including a scathing description of Lady Portia Featherington.
While introducing Portia s daughters, Whistledown says, Three misses, foisted upon the marriage market like sorrowful sows by their tasteless, tactless mama.
Portia certainly has a reputation around town, so the opening line could ve been written by a number of people. However, no one seems more frustrated by her behavior than her youngest daughter, Penelope.
From the series opening moments, Penelope disagrees with her mother s views on everything from marriage to her treatment of her cousin Marina, so it s a tip-off that Whistledown consistently paints such a negative picture of Portia.