Life in Squares

2015 • BBC Worldwide
4.2
5 reviews
Eligible
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Season 1 episodes (3)

1 Episode 1
12/7/15
Season-only
Painter Vanessa Stephen and her writer sister Virginia embark on a life of unexpected, post-Victorian freedom in bohemian Bloomsbury. But when they are introduced to flamboyant male admirers, their idyll is rocked and the sisters' relationship is threatened.
2 Episode 2
12/7/15
Season-only
As war descends on Europe, the Bloomsbury friends struggle to build a life outside London. Virginia weds Leonard Woolf and begins a unique, unexpectedly happy marriage, which is in stark contrast to Vanessa and Clive's failing relationship. Vanessa comes to the painful realisation that she is in love with gay Duncan Grant and so begins a life devoted to him, painting and her children.
3 Episode 3
12/7/15
Season-only
Vanessa and Duncan's daughter Angelica is grown up but still unaware of her true parentage. As tragedy hits the family, Vanessa is finally galvanised into revealing the secret she's withheld for so long. Angelica's horror at the betrayal is painfully damning of her upbringing and threatens to drive a lasting wedge between mother and daughter.

About this show

Told over 40 years, from the death of Queen Victoria to the Second World War, the story centres on the close and often fraught relationship between sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, and Vanessa’s sexually complicated alliance with gay artist Duncan Grant. Surrounded by the finest progressive minds of the day – including the renowned writer Lytton Strachey, art critic Clive Bell, and pioneering economist Maynard Keynes – they are determined to shake off the shackles of Victorian England.

Ratings and reviews

4.2
5 reviews