Upcoming 'Dangerous Liaisons' !

This Dangerous Liaisons Prequel Will Set Pulses Racing This Autumn

BY RADHIKA SETH



'In a nutshell:

Rising stars Alice Englert and Nicholas Denton take the lead in Harriet Warner’s small screen prequel to Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’s 18th-century classic about two feuding ex-lovers, previously adapted into a ravishing drama starring Glenn Close and John Malkovich.



Who’s in the cast of Dangerous Liaisons?

Alice Englert – who broke out as the doomed Nurse Dolly in Ratched and the equally doomed Teresa Knowlton in The Serpent – is Camille, the future Marquise de Merteuil. (The 28-year-old Sydney native also happens to be the daughter of Oscar-winning auteur Jane Campion). Meanwhile, Glitch’s Nicholas Denton is Vicomte de Valmont, her notorious former lover. Also lending support? Phantom Thread and The Crown’s Lesley Manville as the current Marquise de Merteuil, who takes Camille under her wing; BAFTA-nominated Rocks star Kosar Ali as Victoire, Camille’s best friend and partner in crime; Game of Thrones’s Carice van Houten as Jacqueline de Montrachet, a pious noblewoman with a mysterious connection to our heroine; and Paloma Faith as the fiery Florence de Regnier, a stalwart of the French court.



What will be the plot of Dangerous Liaisons?

The network behind the project, Starz, describes the show as “a bold prelude of Laclos’s novel focusing on the origin story of how his iconic characters, the Marquise de Merteuil and the Vicomte de Valmont, met as passionate young lovers in Paris on the eve of the revolution”. Billed as a “modern take on a classic”, it will centre on their will-they-won’t-they romance, but also feature Camille blazing a trail in male-dominated 18th-century society by wielding secrets to gain power. Valmont, too, has other things on his mind: the reckless libertine’s title has recently been taken from him, and he’ll stop at nothing to get it back. Cue snarky asides, double crossing and plenty of elaborate, seductive scheming.



The first stills from the series, released on 11 August, offer even more clues, showing Englert and Denton getting cosy, Victoire clutching a letter that appears to be addressed to Valmont, and a smiling Manville seemingly advising her young protégée at the opera. The other crucial takeaway? The costumes – bejewelled ball gowns, rows upon rows of pearls, feather-strewn wigs à la Marie Antoinette – are dazzling.



Is there a trailer for Dangerous Liaisons?

Not yet, though Starz did release a first teaser on 11 August – and it features as much deceit and debauchery as you’d expect. It opens with a misty aerial shot of 18th-century Paris, where a corseted Camille, accompanied by Victoire, is striding through the halls of a grand palace. “What would you give to have me back?” she asks Valmont, once the pair come face to face. “Everything,” he whispers back. We then see glimpses of the two schemers with their countless other lovers, an eerie shot of a masked ball, and Carice van Houten in character in what appears to be a showstopping wedding dress.


So exciting !

Mon Dieu ! Les photos n'inspirent pas.