Beat the Devil

British history offers fertile ground for period dramas, and historical fantasy offers something of a sweet spot where diversity and representation are concerned. The media elites, enamored by United Colors of Benneton casting, sometimes overstep in the Mary Sue or diverse casting department. But with Renegade Nell, writer/producer Sally Wainwright creates a vision of Restoration England that draws on cleverly re-imagined history, high magic and breakneck pacing to create an imaginative playground where everyone can feel welcome.

It’s 1705, and things are rotten in Merry Olde England. It’s hard times for the peasants while the decadent and corrupt nobility make everybody’s life miserable by racing around in carriages with their powdered wigs and buckled shoes, terrorizing the hoi polloi. When inn-keeper Sam Trotter is murdered by young rake Thomas Blanchford, his daughter Nell abandons the inn for the perilous life of a highwaywoman.

Highwaymen were a feature of Restoration England – and a nasty one at that. Carriage traffic along the King’s Highway was routinely waylaid and passengers relieved of their valuables. Fanciful Robin Hood-like reputations emerged for some of these scoundrels and their deeds recounted in newspaper broadsheets of the time. Renegade Nell exploits this very real feature of Restoration life and uses artistic license to confect a highwaywoman (Derry Girls’ Louisa Harland) whose prowess with sword and pistol is magnified by magical strength and cunning. It doesn’t take long for Nell’s exploits to arouse the jealousy of her fellow highwaymen and the attention of the nobility.

Wainwright here cleverly warps another thread of real history: the Jacobite movement to restore the Stuart line to the throne of England. The historical Jacobite movement was essentially a religious conflict. The Renegade Nell version, too, is religious but on a much grander scale. Instead of Catholics and Protestants bickering over succession, the powers of good and evil square off over control of the world and Nell may be all that stands in their way.

An enclave of Satanists, burrowed deep within the British aristocracy, is stirring. The evil Earl of Poynton, played with sinister panache by English drama heavyweight Adrian Lester, is a government official, an intimate of the Crown and skilled necromancer. Lester, recipient of the Laurence Olivier Award as well as the Evening Standard and Critics’ Circle Theatre awards, is a brooding, volcanic presence smouldering in the story background. The show drops hints throughout the first two episodes that he is more than what he appears to be. But upon learning that Nell’s supernatural power is a threat to the Satanic plot to overthrow the Crown, he uses his sorcerous power to summon a supernatural being – an ancient god from the depths of the earth to destroy our plucky heroine.

The ensuing action sequence is emblematic of every combat scene in the series. Whether the fights are by sword, pistol or hand-to-hand, superb stunt choreography blends with special effects to create flashy and exciting sequences. In a story brimming with chase scenes, combat sequences and supernatural intrusions into ordinary reality, Renegade Nell lacks for nothing in terms of action.

Lester, like Enyi Okornkwo, is black. And the Restoration-era England of Renegade Nell is multicultural, as is increasingly most of British period television. But historical fantasy provides exactly the sort of format for such ethnic explorations (unlike, say, filming a World War II docudrama that portrays Winston Churchill as Pakistani). Lester’s sheer presence makes his turn as Earl Robert Hennessey palpably believable. And Okornkwo adorns his atypical performance as a Restoration-era footman with a kind of warm irony that adds a deep humanity to an otherwise minor role.

In our era of gender fluidity and fascination with drag, the setting of Renegade Nell proves an unexpected stage for relevant action. The fashion of men in the period consisted of florid costumes, silk stockings, high-heeled shoes and elaborate wigs. Men took as much pains as – if not more – than women with their make-up. It was a prettified era and Renegade Nell isn’t stingy with campiness.

Nor is Nell herself immune to a little genderwang. With her hair tied back, swaddled in a military jacket and galloping hard on horseback, people routinely mistake our highwaywoman for a young man. Her violence of action only adds to this impression, as does her tough, Cockney snarl. Nell is a classic tomboy and fearless into the bargain. Her own relationship to men is ambiguous, with her shying away from the attentions of her village suitor.