A Woman of Substance review: Class war meets 1970s glamour

Brenda Blethyn, last seen in Vera’s dowdy green raincoat, scrubs up nicely as Emma Harte, “the world’s richest woman”. Striding from her chauffeur-driven car into the department store bearing her name, she is a blow-dried vision of confidence, a woman at ease with power.

She is also on a mission to find out who is spreading rumours about her health, causing shares in her company to nosedive. She suspects a member of the Fairley family, her first employers and sworn enemies. It’s not her first tussle with them, and it won’t be the last. Cue the flashback!

From 1970s New York, we rewind to Yorkshire at the birth of the twentieth century. The mill-owning Squire Fairley is in his big house counting his money while young Emma barely earns a wage for a hard day’s maiding. Not enough is coming in to feed her impoverished but happy family, never mind buy the medicine her dying mother needs. 

Barbara Taylor Bradford, like Catherine Cookson, is part of that group of women authors whose resilient heroines quietly empowered generations of readers. Their novels were full of sound advice, including the importance of keeping a hand on your ha’penny and not believing the honeyed promises of rich young men. Emma, alas, will learn that lesson the hard way.

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“Get out and get on,” is mam’s advice to her clever, resourceful daughter, and by the end of the first episode - the series continues on Thursday night - Emma’s savings jar is filling up nicely. She is on her way, but what future lies ahead?

Irish actor Jessica Reynolds makes a terrific Yorkshire lass, her hackles rising magnificently at every Fairley power play. Will Mellor as her father and Lenny Rush as her brother supply the tear-jerking moments. Also on the side of decent men is Niall Wright as Mac the handyman, while Emmett J Scanlon (Kin) is the devilishly handsome squire you’ll love to despise. Blethyn has not had much of a look-in so far, but she is clearly relishing the role, as is Leanne Best as the Squire’s tempestuous wife. 

The Upstairs Downstairs part of the tale is where most of the bodice-ripping and trouser-dropping occurs, and what a lot there is of it, too. Maybe it’s the lack of central heating: a body has to keep warm somehow in those draughty old piles. 

Writer and showrunner Katherine Jakeways resists the temptation to camp things up or fall too far into period cliche. This is a story first and foremost about class and overcoming hardship, now as much as then, but there’s plenty of glamour to feast upon too as the two Emmas make their way in life. Watch out world.