Newsletter_42.1

This episode appeared as part of a series of three devoted to the cultural revolution that occurred in Britain in the years between the wars. The first dealt with architecture and design, with a focus on Art Deco and modernism, the third with the influence of Hollywood films on British culture. The second was devoted to the so-called Bright Young People of the 1920s. Presenters included Philip Hoare (biographer of Stephen Tennant), Selina Hastings (biographer of Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford), Lucy Moore (author of Anything Goes: A Biography of the Roaring Twenties) and D. J. Taylor (author of a cultural survey entitled The Bright Young People). Indeed, Taylor’s book (reviewed in EWNS 41.2 and 39.1) seems to have been the basis for the program’s script, which follows his description and interpretation of participants in the BYP and their cultural/historical importance. No scriptwriter is mentioned in the credits.

The program follows the careers of three participants in the BYP (Stephen Tennant, Elizabeth Ponsonby and Brenda Dean Paul) and two observers and chroniclers of that movement (Evelyn Waugh and Cecil Beaton). The three examples of BYPs were all from well-established upper-class families. Philip Hoare provides most of the narrative on Stephan Tennant, whose primary talent seems to have been drawing attention to himself as a thing of beauty. Nancy Mitford drew heavily on Tennant for her character Cedric Hampton in Love in a Cold Climate and The Pursuit of Love, and Caroline Blackwood compared him to David Bowie (unfair because Bowie can sing). Taylor provides much of the narrative on Ponsonby (a prime party- giver and goer) and Dean Paul, who like Tennant managed to draw attention to herself but in a more flamboyant manner that attracted not only newspapers but also police. Ponsonby is said to have been the model for Agatha Runcible in Vile Bodies. All of these BYP are seen as precursors of today’s celebrities, famous for being famous, and cleverly manipulating the media to promote themselves.

Waugh and Beaton despised each other in childhood and would probably resent their linkage. They were both middle-class boys who worked their ways into the fringes of the BYP. They were not leaders or participants but observers. Each used what he observed to produce records of the BYP which remain among the most valuable cultural legacies of the movement. Philip Hoare is shown browsing the photo archives left by Beaton and housed for some unexplained reason at Sotheby’s. He selects and explicates numerous photographs, many of which also appeared in Taylor’s book. Waugh’s first two novels, particularly Vile Bodies, are cited as primary sources for insights into the life of the BYP. Stephen Fry’s 2003 film Bright Young Things, based on Vile Bodies, is mined for clips illustrating parties, language and attitudes of the BYP. There are also quotes from the book itself, one read by BYP Diana Mosley.

The BYP movement is said to have ended in 1931 as a result of the Red and White Ball. The BYP had lost control of the press, which became highly critical of the continuing parties, described as “imbecile extravagances.” These took place while others went on hunger marches. The BYP became boring when attention shifted to political and economic issues of the 1930s, away from self-absorbed children of the aristocracy. Tennant, Ponsonby and Dean Paul all came to sad ends. Hoare describes visiting Tennant in 1986 while researching his biography. Once he stopped attracting attention, Tennant lived in virtual seclusion, dying unknown in 1988. Ponsonby tried to continue partying to the end. Taylor is filmed going through archives of Ponsonby's upper-class family home (still apparently occupied by her relatives), and he recounts her death in 1941, a result of alcoholism. Dean Paul became a drug addict for the thrill of it in the 1920s but never managed to shake it off, and she also died in obscurity. “Beautiful and Damned” gives Waugh credit for having predicted the fate of the BYP, though the program could have mentioned his portrayal of the BYP as middle-aged burnouts in later fiction.

Waugh and Beaton, both adept at self-promotion, went on to success in their chosen fields. Rather than squander their talents in the relentless quest for press coverage, they focused on what they did best and promoted themselves through their works. Both left diaries dealing with the BYP, good reading even today. Waugh is said to have abandoned the BYP after he published VBin 1930, when he embarked upon more selective social climbing among the upper classes who had avoided excess and publicity. Beaton followed the same pattern of social climbing, with perhaps even greater success. Waugh left novels that continue to be read and dramatized, and he is often cited as one of the greatest prose stylists of the English language in the twentieth century. Beaton became one of the most skillful and innovative photographers and designers of the century, and his photos still have immediacy and originality that has not dated.

“Beautiful and Damned” is worth watching, though anyone familiar with the period is unlikely to learn much. Beaton’s photographs and quotations from literature are carefully woven into the narrative. The talking heads are all well versed in the matters under consideration, and they are articulate enough to hold the viewer’s attention over sixty minutes.

Period Piece Last Dance with Valentino, by Daisy Waugh. London: HarperCollins, 2011. £12.99. Reviewed by Robert Murray Davis,

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