Period Dramas to Watch When Ill

Photo by Olivia Gündüz-Willemin.

Nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing, is quite so comforting when you’re stuck in bed, battling illness, as throwing yourself back through time, whether a couple of decades or centuries through the fiction you consume. Why this is true likely has to do with the psychological reassurance of revisiting favorite books and films and even shows at various points in life. In my case, it’s been true for as long as I can remember and has resulted in many experiences that have somehow improved my memories of the incidents — reading Rebecca for the first time with a twisted ankle as a thirteen year old, Villette during a bout of the flu that struck just in the middle of my winter break in senior year of high school, a rewatch of North and South (2004) while battling bronchitis in university, Pride and Prejudice forever and always.

It is, after all, a matter of comfort. Often, the stories we turn to while ill are ones we know well: we’ve read and reread Little Women since childhood; we have passages of the 2005 Pride and Prejudice memorized; and The Secret Garden has inspired us for nearly thirty years. They’re fast friends that have always been there for us and always will be. Dependable and soft, they’re like a hot a cup of tea or a loving hand rubbing our feverish backs, except they’re not to be held back by geographic limits or isolation. They’re there for us as long as we can pick up our books or our screens.

Comfort accounted for, they also bring a little bit of glamour to the situation. I don’t know about you, but personally, I always find that even a touch of glamour makes anything instantly more bearable. It doesn’t have to be much — a silk pillowcase for your sick bed, a cheery bunch of flowers, a dignified pajama set, red nail polish in the hospital — but it has to be something. And for whatever reason (for obvious reasons), suffering from illness seems to have been not only less shameful but also just a tiny bit more chic in the past. Of course, when you are not in the midst of a feverish haze, this is absolute nonsense because we know very well that there was more death, more suffering, more mental health abuse, more of everything bad in the world, and even the seemingly good things — such as not being devoured by shame that you can’t work while sick — came from the fact that the privileged women in the fictions that make us feel more glamorous when ill were simply not in the workforce. However, when you are feverish (and more so, for days) and convinced that your suffering is insurmountable, then well, it becomes oh so easy to shush the facts for a bit and wish you could swoon onto a beautiful canopy bed while wearing a lace nightgown and inhabit the aesthetically superior worlds of your period dramas.

Thankfully an easy way to deal with this in the real world is to acquire more of the little things: silk pillowcases, lace nightgowns, red nail polish, flowers, piles of books and DVDs (so many good period dramas can’t even be streamed, let’s be real)… none of these are hard to find these days, and after almost two decades of making sure they’re present in my day to day, I can say with assurance that if you are as absurdly moved by aesthetics, looking up from your lace-trimmed pillow at your manicured hand or your vase of flowers in the middle of a horrible coughing spell while a sweeping original soundtrack plays in the background can help just a tiny bit. And as a bonus of your years of period drama therapy, you’ll know well ahead of time that if you cough up blood in the middle of said coughing spell, it is once again time to call the doctor.

Period Dramas to Watch When Ill

• Pride and Prejdudice (1995 or 2005)
  Which Pride and Prejudice to watch depends on your mood: Do you want to be immersed in the world for longer and see more details of Austen’s novel play out on your screen? Then go for the 1995 miniseries. Are you more in the mood for vibes? A happy condensation of the essentials? 2005 film. I don’t love one more than the other, and often my answer to this debate is to simply watch both.

• Bridgerton (2022)
  When battling a double whammy of Covid and pneumonia earlier this year, the second season of Bridgerton was frankly the best, new thing the internet had to provide. Much, much better than its first season, the second is just as escapist but more substantial: better storytelling, more compelling characters (I loved the development of the Sharma sisters), more period drama-worthy longing, and everyone’s favorite enemies-to-lovers trope.

• The Pursuit of Love (2021)
  Nancy Mitford’s The Pursuit of Love kept me company in novel form through an unhappy Christmas a couple of years ago, and the 2021 BBC adaptation was great company during Covid. The series follows two cousins through fifteen years of their lives, as they grow from adolescence into adults in the 1920s and 1930s and face a series of romantic entanglements along the way. Adapted by Emily Mortimer, the period drama is not criticly considered to be a good series, but it is entertaining and captures the spirit of the novel.

• The Secret Garden (1993)
  The 1993 Secret Garden, directed by Agnieszka Holland and executive-produced by Francis Ford Coppola, is a formative classic. It’s the first period drama I remember watching (and loving) and I do not know how many times I’ve seen it over the years, but it never loses any of its charm. It’s especially perfect when you’re stuck indoors and yearning to be out in the fresh air and surrounded by flowers.
  (As a bonus: the film even features cloth masks to protect from illness, so it might not give you the “why is no one wearing a mask?!” whiplash that so much entertainment can give us these days.)

• Sense and Sensibility (1995)
  The 1995 Sense and Sensibility, directed by Ang Lee and more notably for us these days, written by Emma Thompson, is one of the very best period dramas ever made. It isn’t necessarily the most loyal Austen adaptation, but it is an absolutely perfect film. It’s witty, beautiful, and it makes the Dashwood sisters and their romantic interests even more interesting than in the novel. (It isn’t often that I prefer an adaptation to an Austen novel, but this may be one of the exceptions.) Plus, the film features one of the most aesthetically enticing cottages ever to grace our screens.

  (Illness bonus: if you don’t want to be too escapist while ill, Marianne’s fever features prominently.)

• Emma (2009)

  While Autumn De Wilde’s 2020 film adaptation of Emma is a perfect film beloved by many at The Attic and is also great viewing when sick, it would be a shame for the 2008 BBC miniseries to be forgotten, especially if bedridden and in search of a multi-episode miniseries to pass the time. Extremely loyal to the Austen novel, the miniseries captures the humor and warmth of Emma and is one of the most biting adaptations.

• North and South (2004)
  Elizabeth Gaskell’s North and South is to some seen as an Industrial Revolution Pride & Prejudice, and it is just so good, in both its original book form and the 2004 miniseries that is a decided favorite amongst my friends. Starring Daniela Denby-Ashe and Richard Armitage, it’s beautifully acted, extremely moody, and the perfect length to take you through an afternoon of illness.

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Olivia Gündüz-Willemin is Editor-in-Chief of The Attic on Eighth. She is dedicated to reading her way through the world and trying to stay as calm as possible.