BBC airs Marie Antoinette: Here is what all we know about the show (2024)

FAQs

BBC airs Marie Antoinette: Here is what all we know about the show? ›

Marie Antoinette tells the story of the modern and avant-garde young queen who left Austria at the age of 14 to marry the Dauphin of France. She must produce a Bourbon heir to ensure France and Austria's alliance, but she is as unprepared for the role because of her awkward teenage husband.

Is “Marie Antoinette” based on a true story? Yes, but with extensive dramatic license. Created by British screenwriter Deborah Davis, who co-wrote the 2018 period drama The Favourite, “Marie Antoinette” originally premiered in Europe in 2022.

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Marie Antoinette / Number of episodes

The first season of the Deborah Davis-created series will premiere in the United States on PBS on March 19. Fans of Canal+'s series Marie Antoinette are going to have their cake and eat it too as Variety reports that the title has been granted a second season.

Yes, Marie Antoinette did speak French.

Marie Antoinette spoke German, French, and Italian. Historians suggest she spoke French with an accent. She was educated by private tutors before her marriage to the future King of France.

For Marie Antoinette in particular, baths happened everyday. According to her nineteenth-century biographer: The queen took a bath nearly everyday; a large tub was rolled into her room and the bathers were admitted with all the accessories of a bath.

Audience Reviews

Honestly, I think the show is worth watching for a different spin on the story of Marie Antoinette… but there is a tremendous amount of detail known today about her life and the show alters history a bit too much and I'm not sure why. I don't think the truth takes away from a more feminist perspective.

Nonetheless, she had four biological children with her notoriously weak husband King Louis XVI, before facing her execution in 1793. They were: Marie Thérèse Charlotte, born on December 9, 1778, Louis Joseph Xavier François, born in 1781, Louis XVII, born in March 1785, and Sophie Hélène Béatrix, born in July 1786.

Paris, 1774. At the tender age of eighteen, Marie Antoinette ascends to the French throne alongside her husband, Louis XVI. But behind the extravagance of the young queen's elaborate silk gowns and dizzyingly high coiffures, she harbors deeper fears for her future and that of the Bourbon dynasty.

What is the Marie Antoinette syndrome? ›

Marie Antoinette syndrome designates the condition in which scalp hair suddenly turns white. The name alludes to the unhappy Queen Marie Antoinette of France (1755-1793), whose hair allegedly turned white the night before her last walk to the guillotine during the French Revolution. She was 38 years old when she died.

'Marie Antoinette' Back On The BBC

The BBC has announced that it has acquired the second season of Canal+ Creation Originale Marie Antoinette. Sue Deeks, head of acquisitions for the BBC, said the first season of Deborah Davis' drama had been a “great success” for the corporation.

Although Marie Antoinette initially condescended to her husband, she eventually developed a genuine fondness for him. For his part, Louis was completely devoted to her and never took a mistress, exhibiting a restraint virtually unheard of in an 18th-century French king.

Marie Antoinette, a biography series starring Emilia Schüle, Louis Cunningham, and Jack Archer is available to stream now. Watch it on PBS, Prime Video or Apple TV on your Roku device.

Now, author Evelyn Farr is bringing to light evidence that two of the queen's children were actually fathered by Count Axel von Fersen and not King Louis XVI. Having recently finished watching Making a Murderer on Netflix my first reaction to this story was - "What about the DNA testing!?"

Watch Marie Antoinette | Netflix.

Antoinette loses not just Fersen, but also her mother: the empress has died. Mercy calls Lamballe back to Versailles to comfort Antoinette. So both Lamballe and Yolande are there when Antoinette gives birth to a boy—an heir to the throne, at last—as are all of her enemies within the royal family—even Chartres.

Right now you can watch Marie Antoinette on PBS Masterpiece Amazon Channel.

Watch Marie Antoinette, Season 1 | Prime Video.

The stakes become more clear to Antoinette when she learns that Maurepas would force her to stay in France after the divorce—she's a security risk, having learned too many state secrets. The ambassadors, Louis, and Joseph visit the convent where Antoinette will live out the rest of her life under supervision.