Tipping the Velvet (2002)

 

Netflix has been dangling this BBC miniseries in front of me for a long time, and I finally checked it out.  I’ll admit that Benedict Cumberbatch has a small role in the first episode, and that’s part of the reason it reached the top of my queue right now, but I knew from the start that I wanted to watch all three parts.  It’s rough but earnest, with an engaging style and an excellent heroine.

 

Set late in the Victorian age (around the 1890s,) Tipping the Velvet is the bildungsroman tale of Nan Astley, an 18-year-old “oyster girl” living with her family in a small seaside town.  Nan’s desires are awakened when, on a trip to the local music hall, she’s transfixed by male impersonator Kitty Butler.  She falls quickly, almost unconsciously, in love with Kitty and soon follows her to London as Kitty searches for big-time stage success.

 

From there, Nan’s life is a whirlwind of show business, joy, heartbreak, poverty, and tentative renewal.  Love spins her around, she explores the wide spectrum of gender and gender identity, and she hangs on for dear life through dizzying highs and crushing lows.  Rachael Stirling (who was wonderful as Ada in “The Crimson Horror” on Who last season) plays Nan with heart, nerve, and vulnerability.  Her tumble into love with Kitty is so open and artless, and her meandering growth into a young woman is fascinating.  I love watching her blossom in her timid first steps toward a music-hall career, I feel for her during her hard times, and I admire her fierce, ever-present yearning for love.

 

Plenty of fine British actors on display here.  Nan’s dream girl Kitty is played by Keeley Hawes from the U.K. version of Death at a Funeral, and Sally Hawkins (Anne in the 2007 Persuasion,) Jodhi May (Mrs. Weston in the 2009 Emma,) and Anna Chancellor (Caroline Bingley in the 1995 Pride and Prejudice – wow, lots of Austen alumni!) also get in on the fun.  (I should mention that, more recently, Anna Chancellor played Lix on The Hour, fabulously.)  It’s a pretty female-centric story, but on the gent’s side, we have supporting roles from Dean Lennox Kelly (Kev on Shameless, Shakespeare from series 3 of Who) and Hugh Bonneville (from “The Curse of the Black Spot” in series 6 of Who, and of course Lord Grantham on Downton Abbey.)

 

I really like the direction here.  The camera work and music do an excellent job of letting you into Nan’s head.  There’s the way the sound fades out and the camera pulls Kitty toward you when Nan sees her perform for the first time, or the frenetic, merry-go-round perspective when she’s desperate and hungry on the London streets.  I’m reminded a little of the chaotic heightened reality of Baz Luhrmann’s work.

 

I’ll warn that the miniseries is somewhat uneven.  The middle episode, rather than merely incorporating sex into the plot, seems to depict sex in lieu of plot, which gets kind of boring.  Also, Keeley Hawes makes the least convincing drag king I’ve ever seen.  I get that male impersonation in the 1890s was probably very different from modern drag performance, but seriously – with her gliding movements, whispery singing voice, and soft feminine features, I scott at all the numerous characters who talk about how great Kitty is at what she does.  Rachael Stirling is worlds better.