<em>Gentleman Jack</em> Sanitizes an Audacious, Difficult Woman

In 2002, the BBC premiered a three-part adaptation of Sarah Waters’s novel , the rare show that managed to transcend the feverish, tabloid-stoked anticipation of its transgressive elements. Billed as the most explicit lesbian drama in British television history, told the story of a Whitstable oyster girl, Nan (Rachael Stirling), who falls in love with a male impersonator, Kitty (Keeley Hawes), and ends up embroiled in a Victorian subculture of sapphism and exploitation. Compared with how abjectly the miniseries was hyped (“Scenes in the drama involve crude sex toys, swearing and sex acts,” the ), what actually aired was a playful, poignant coming-of-age story about sexuality hiding in plain sight. , Waters , was itself exploited for the purposes of titillation, and yet the fact that it was adapted at all was close to miraculous, given the dearth of lesbian stories in mainstream culture.