PUZZLES WE KNOW YOUR REAL AIM, LORD LUST

As Bridgerton returns, rakish Anthony sets his sights on a new arrival from India

Bridgerton fans left heartbroken that pin-up star Regé-Jean Page isn’t returning as the dashing Duke of Hastings, wipe away your tears. Jonathan Bailey’s Lord Anthony is more than ready to take over in the beefcake department in the hotly awaited second season, not least with a dip into the water that out-sizzles even Colin Firth’s Mr Darcy in Pride And Prejudice.

Netflix’s hugely popular show is a luxuriantly indulgent televisual guilty pleasure that immediately revealed itself to be a romantic period drama unlike any other on its debut in 2020.

Giving the bodice-ripper formula a 21st Century makeover, American television mogul Shonda Rhimes (Scandal, Inventing Anna) threw out fusty old stereotypes and puritanically restrained love scenes.

In their place came a riproaringly no-holds-barred approach that gleefully welcomed racially diverse casting and gave licence for bedroom romps that left very little to the imagination.

After series one followed the plot of the first book in Julia Quinn’s series The Duke And I, now the story comes from her follow-up, The Viscount Who Loved Me, and centres on the eldest of the Bridgerton children, Lord

Anthony (Bailey), a headstrong young aristocrat with swooningly handsome looks but a cruelly rakish personality.

The viscount is on a mission to find a wife, though the notion of true love hardly figures on his agenda. Instead, he wants to pick a debutante who meets his exactingly high standards to be a suitable match for the rarefied peaks of aristocratic high society.

But there’s no controlling matters of the heart in Bridgerton – and the arrival from India of the enchantingly beautiful Sharma sisters, Kate (Simone Ashley, above with Bailey) and Edwina (Charithra Chandran), is set to play havoc with Anthony’s plans.

Look out for the return of other much loved characters, including that imperiously whiplash-tongued grande dame of society, Lady Danbury (Adjoa Andoh).

Then there’s the merciless gossiper known to society solely under her nom de plume, Lady

Whistledown (voiced by Julie Andrews), who viewers learned at the end of the first series is Penelope Featherington (Nicola Coughlan). But as she plots mischief anonymously, it may be only a matter of time before her scheming rebounds on her with a vengeance…

Brace yourself for a feast of elegant period dress, deliciously bitchy dialogue, eye-opening sex scenes and the spectacle of lovely English country-house locations.

With eight episodes in all, there’s surely only one place to be on Friday evening: watching the sexy, elegant court of Bridgerton.