What It's Like to Make a Show About Your Fascist Great-Grandfather

Time​ Magazine

4 days ago

Eagle-eyed viewers of Outrageous, BritBox's new historical drama about the six real-life Mitford sisters' wildly diverging political views at the onset of World War II, might pause the closing credits for a quick double take. Does that say…'Mosley'? Executive Producer Matthew Mosley, actually, and yes, he is one of those Mosleys. Matthew is indeed the great-grandson of Sir Oswald Mosley, founder of the British Union of Fascists and once one-half of the most hated couple in England, portrayed in the new series by Joshua Sasse.
Matthew is the great-grandson of Oswald Mosley, from his first marriage to Lady Cynthia Curzon, on whom he cheated with both her younger sister and their stepmother, as well as (the then-married) Diana Mitford, whom he finally wed after Cynthia died in 1933. Adolf Hitler was their guest of honor. Deemed dangerous to national security by MI5, Mosley and his wife spent three years interned in prison before moving abroad in disgrace.
No one would blame Matthew Mosley for staying mum about his notorious surname, but the head of development at Firebird Pictures—by complete fluke, though we'll get to that later—is instead using his platform to tell his not-so-comfy family story far and wide. Why not pop grandpa's problematic politics in the vault like the rest of us? Did he find any redeeming qualities in his abhorrent ancestor? And what's it like to grow up in the shadow of the most hated man in the country? As Outrageous lands on American screens, London-based Matthew Mosley dishes all the dirty familial details.
Mosley: Oswald Mosley was my great-grandfather. I'm descended through his first wife, not through him and Diana Mitford. Oswald Mosley had three children by his first wife, Cynthia—Vivien, Michael and Nicholas, my grandfather. My father was his son, Shaun.
I can't pinpoint any one moment, actually, and thankfully I was never sat down one day and told some dark family secret. Instead we were very open and it was always talked about, so I feel like I always knew. But [my great-grandfather] has cast a shadow over the family in many ways, so it's something we've all had to reconcile with over the years. Being descended from such a despised character is something you have to come to terms with. Some people are descended from brilliant people, but I don't happen to be and most people aren't. My family has just had to accept that, and we did.
On one hand, it does feel like ancient history—I mean, I wasn't even born when Oswald Mosley died. They all lived in these massive country estates, which wasn't like my upbringing at all. Reading about him is almost like reading about someone who lived on a different planet. He certainly impacted my life though. At school, when we were studying the Second World War, my teacher politely moved over that section. By university, people recognized my name and would ask me if I was related. I've always been honest about it, because it's important to acknowledge things that happened and that are still happening. I've never suffered from the connection though. I think people find it interesting more than anything else.
One of England's proudest achievements is being on the right side of history during the war. My great-grandfather was not. He was married to 'the most hated woman in England,' as Diana was widely known, which arguably makes him the country's most hated man. But when he was younger, he was a perfectly reasonable politician. He was idealistic, clever, an excellent orator. The pursuit of power sort of clouded everything for him and seems to have taken him to a place when he believed terrible things. I think there was a sort of rigidity and inflexibility in him that he could never admit he was wrong, even if he knew he was wrong.
Outrageous was a passion project of Sarah Williams, who's been obsessed with this story for years. I was obviously aware and knew a fair amount about the story, albeit more from the Mosley side than the Mitford side, but Sarah knows all the different facets of each of the sisters. Sarah had no idea of my connection to the family when she pitched the show to my boss, who said, 'There's actually someone who works here who is related.' I came on board the project very soon after that. It was a little bit weird at first, as my great-grandfather is a big character in the show. I've never envisioned being in this situation.
No, I deliberately didn't. First of all, because I'm a producer and already busy spinning all these plates—costumes, props, set design, scheduling—at once to make a show happen. Every so often, I'd walk on set and Joshua Sasse would be in full costume as my great-grandfather, and I'd think, Goodness, this is my family history. It was quite surreal, as you can imagine. But the truth is Sarah and Joshua had done much more research than I ever did. The actors were so impressive in the depth of their research—Joshua actually had made this incredible scrapbook with photographs and newspaper articles. He was telling me all these things I didn't know, so I was learning as much as anyone else.
It's one thing to read about someone in a textbook or a newspaper, but to bring the person to life, the actors take so many physical cues to portray their personalities. Diana, for example, when anything unpleasant was said in her presence, would slowly blink her eyes in an incredible act of denial. Joshua found pictures of Oswald Mosley practicing his speeches and he adopted the physical stances [my great-grandfather] took to get his message across in the most powerful way. Joshua also showed me a letter to Mosley from his mother where she compares him to the Messiah. That's a strange little insight into his psychology that I won't forget.
I think it's so important to be frank and honest. We all have our psychology and our own context. Even people who subscribe to the most terrible beliefs have got there through their particular experience of being in the world. To understand, we need to engage and acknowledge the complexity of human beings. In a way, this show is almost like a warning from history, particularly with the characters who become involved in very far-right politics like my great-grandfather. We should be asking how and why people go down these dark political paths because it's happening again.