a woman of substance
reviews
***** DAILY MAIL “A brilliant rags-to-riches epic! Pour yourself a sherry and get bingeing… Melodrama, sex, opulence and romance… Barbara Taylor Bradford’s epic bonkbuster A Woman Of Substance is such an outrageously guilty pleasure, it could probably give you high cholesterol. If Jilly Cooper had been one of the Bronte sisters, this is what you’d get - a country house on the Yorkshire moors, where a wicked mill owner lives with his mad, drunken wife, and an ambitious maid romps with the master’s son as she plots her rise to riches.”
**** THE TELEGRAPH “One of the funniest facts about Channel 4 is that, for all its desire to be subversive and daring, its highest-rated show of all time is the 1985 period drama A Woman of Substance. Forty years on, they’ve remade it. And instead of doing it with postmodern irony they’ve turned out a loving homage to Barbara Taylor Bradford and her rags-to-riches tale, albeit with a raging libido… it’s irresistible.”
*** THE GUARDIAN “A Woman of Substance is clearly Channel 4’s bid to rival Rivals, the hugely successful Disney+ adaptation of Dame Jilly Cooper’s blockbuster … A Woman of Substance still works brilliantly as a nostalgia piece – a perfect homage to the age of excess and television that drowned you in plot and let someone else worry about the rest. Think of it as Dallas in Yorkshire. Three-star television but four-star nonsense and delight.”
*** THE TIMES “A Woman of Substance is clichéd, simplistic and OTT — and I’m loving it.”
*** THE METRO “Channel 4’s new Woman of Substance is engrossing … Emma is a fabulous character: headstrong, capable, with a knack for sweet-talking everyone who believes themselves to be above her. It’s tremendous fun to watch.”
*** RADIO TIMES “Creating productions with the female gaze at the forefront of the ideation process has sure been a long time coming and while that's a subject I could wax lyrical about at any time of day, it's clear to see that A Woman of Substance is a relatable production that has been cleverly crafted by a female-led team.”
“It's a show that leans into its sexiness and melodrama –“
“Reynolds is a force to be reckoned with here – bringing humour, light, hope and heartbreak to every episode.”
“It's a series that does deal with some big themes that clearly stand the test of time, but is very much steeped in the heady world of revenge. Most importantly, though, A Woman of Substance is the kind of show you can't help but want to blitz through to the end – a testament to the captivating leading ladies at the centre of it.”
*** THE INDEPENDENT “Despite the longueurs, AWOS gets where it needs to go. In the book, our vengeance-seeking heroine orders Fairley Hall to be razed to the ground, and by the end, has the elite at her feet. In the new version, Emma is just as angry, but leaves the pillars of the establishment unshaken, and ultimately faces an uncertain future. How apt. Social mobility, in the UK, has been in decline since the Eighties. Kudos to the creators of this mostly thrilling series, for forcing BTB’s most beloved character to move with the times.”
DIGITAL SPY A Woman of Substance viewers hail "so fabulous" Brenda Blethyn as period drama remake airs first episode "It's amazing so far."
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THE GUARDIAN / MICHAEL HOGAN https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/mar/10/a-woman-of-substance-remake-channel-4-barbara-taylor-bradford
“The result is Rivals meets Poldark, with a dash of Downton and Dynasty… It has been called ‘the original female empowerment story’ because Emma defies expectations. “She’s a feminist icon,” … “A working-class woman who breaks glass ceilings and transcends her roots.”
DEADLINE https://deadline.com/2026/03/jessica-reynolds-intervierw-a-woman-of-substance-1236750382/
DRAMA QUARTERLY https://dramaquarterly.com/style-and-substance-2/
COSMOPOLITAN https://www.cosmopolitan.com/uk/entertainment/a70713104/a-woman-of-substance-explaining-the-two-timelines/
THE TELEGRAPH https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2026/03/13/my-gen-z-daughter-watched-a-woman-of-substance/