HEAD AND HEART (THE PURSUIT OF LOVE)

The American novelist John Updike once observed that people are most alive when they're in love.

And that's why love affairs tend to fascinate writers, filmmakers and composers.

Passionate affairs see people take risks and break away from the humdrum.

But they can also be addictive and with addiction comes delusion and self-destruction.

Nancy Mitford's hugely popular 1945 novel 'The Pursuit of Love' examines the tension between those who pursue romance and those who settle down into marriage.

Part of a trilogy about an upper class English family comprising of 'Love in a Cold Climate' in 1949 and 'Don't Tell Alfred' in 1960, its popularity has endured and influence on other works has held sway.

An omnibus edition of Mitford's novel pops up in the hands of Sarah Jessica Parker's Carrie Bradshaw in 'Sex and the City 2' and it can also be seen in Wes Anderson's short film 'Hotel Chevalier'.

It has also been adapted twice before for the small screen.

Lucy Gutteridge, Rosalyn Landor, Michael Aldridge and Judi Dench starred in ITV's successful 1980 version of the novels 'Love in a Cold Climate'.

Tom Hooper's two part BBC1 and PBS miniseries of the same name also fared well with Rosamund Pike, Celia Imrie, Alan Bates and Anthony Andrews in 2001.

Emily Mortimer, however, has decided to concentrate on adapting Mitford's first instalment of the trilogy in a new three part miniseries for BBC1.

Stepping into the director's chair, she attacks 'The Pursuit of Love' with great gusto.

Emily Beecham is Fanny Logan, an educated girl whose mother, played by Mortimer, has acquired the nickname "The Bolter" because of her many marriages and her decision to abandon her daughter with relatives for her latest man.

Raised by her Aunt Emily, Fanny spends Christmases and other vacations with her eccentric uncle, Dominic West's Matthew Radlett, her aunt Sadie and their family on their estate in Oxfordshire.

Matthew refuses to have his children educated in the school system, hates foreigners and likes to crack a whip every morning on his palatial lawn.

He is also wary of Fanny and is not sure she is a good influence on his family.

The Radletts' free spirited daughter, Lily James' Linda has a special bond with Fanny, fantasising about marrying the Prince of Wales while her cousin settles for dreaming of a farmer.

However when Linda encounters Andrew Scott's confident Lord Merlin at a debutante ball, she is smitten and abandons all dreams of the Prince of Wales.

While Merlin is fond of Linda, he takes it upon himself to educate her and encourage her to read.

However, her head is soon turned by Freddie Fox's Tony Kroesig who hails from a wealthy banking family with fascist leanings.

Before long, they marry and have a daughter.

But the marriage disintegrates due to Tony's infidelity and Linda's growing affection for James Frecheville's communist activist Christian Talbot.

Embracing the life of a communist activist in London, she leaves her daughter with Tony and ends up marrying Christian and joining him in the Spanish Civil War.

Fanny, meanwhile, settles down with Shazad Latif's staid Oxford don Alfred Winchman who she marries.

While Fanny supports Alfred's career, she frets about Linda's life and about suggestions that her cousin is the next generation's equivalent of The Bolter.

But can the friendship survive Linda's free spirited quest for love? 

And will Fanny's repression of her own desires backfire as she contrasts her dull marriage with Linda's romantic adventures?

Mortimer delivers a spirited adaptation of Mitford's novel which she tackles as if she were asked to step in for Wes Anderson.

The three episode miniseries has the same sense of playfulness as Anderson's movies and an impressive visual panache, boosted by cinematographer Zac Nicholson's images, Sinead Kidao's vibrant costumes and Cristina Cadali's wonderful costume design.

However her adaptation of Mitford's book also raises some interesting questions about the expectations placed on women and how they should behave in marriage, around men and in society.

As you would expect from an actor, Mortimer gives her cast plenty of opportunities to shine but she never loses focus on the need to also visually stimulate and amuse her audience 

She certainly delivers the best performance Lily James has ever committed to screen, who makes Linda a delightfully flighty character who engages our sympathies throughout.

Beecham is the Ying to James' Yang, perfectly capturing Fanny's conventionality and insecurity.

The rest of the cast also acquit themselves very well, with West, Dolly Wells as Aunt Sadie, Annabel Mullion  as Aunt Emily, John Heffernan as Davey, Freddie Fox, James Frecheville, Shazad Latif, Assaad Bouab as Fabrice de Sauveterre and the director herself delivering vivacious performances.

Mortimer cleverly uses pop songs from Bryan Ferry, T Rex, Nina Simone,, the Lily y su Gran Trio, John Cale, New Order, Cat Power, Joan Armatrading, Yves Montand, Buddy Holly and the Rolling Stones, The Who alongside Bach, Johann Strauss, Rossini and Haydn to give her period drama some extra fizz.

Andrew Scott gets another iconic television moment in the first episode, with Lord Merlin introduced to audiences in an epic dance sequence.

And he makes the most of his supporting role, managing to fuse affection, longing, frustration and intellectual snobbishness to hint at what might have been.

Not everything, however, is perfect

Of the three episodes, the second is the weakest - sagging a little and struggling to match the rip-roaring pace and element of surprise of the first.

However Mortimer shows enough visual flair and ambition to suggest she should venture behind the camera more often and not just for the small screen.

Unlike a lot of actors who direct, her work does not succumb to stagey theatricality.

It seems genuinely cinematic.

And if she does decide to turn her hand to adaptations of Mitford's other novels in the trilogy that would be a very positive result.

Mortimer has definitely earned that right.

('The Pursuit of Love' was broadcast on BBC1 from May 9-23, 2021)

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