On their own terms: Apple TV series 'The Buccaneers' focuses on the friendship of five women

Nov. 8—Beth Willis enjoys the classics.

The executive producer carried around a copy of Edith Wharton's "The Buccaneers," for well over a decade.

The novel was Wharton's final body of work and Willis knew she wanted to do something with it.

Then in a meeting with screenwriter Katherine Jakeways, something clicked.

"I was meeting with Katherine about other projects and I loved her as she has a truthful, funny, insightful take on women," Willis says. "So I thought it would be wonderful to take this book with these raucous, confident, independent Americans who are catapulted into stiff upper-lip England and, with Katherine's fresh approach, blow the cobwebs off traditional British period drama. The reality of girls throughout time is they have friendships and jealousies; they have insecurities, they have fun and they have a laugh with one another."

"The Buccaneers" began streaming on Apple TV+ on Nov. 8, with three episodes. The remaining five will be released weekly on Wednesday through Dec. 6.

The series follows Nan St. George, played by Kristine Frøseth and her best friends — sister Jinny St. George, played by Imogen Waterhouse, Conchita Closson, played by Alisha Boe, Lizzy Elmsworth, played by Aubri Ibrag, and Mabel Elmsworth, played by Josie Totah, who are five effervescent, fun-loving American girls who explode onto the tightly corseted London season of the 1870s.

The cast also includes Josh Dylan as Lord Richard (Dick) Marable, Matthew Broome as Guy Thwarte, Guy Remmers as Theo, Duke of Tintagel, Barney Fishwick as Lord James Seadown, Mia Threapleton as Honoria Marable and Christina Hendricks as Mrs. St. George.

Sent to England by their mothers in hopes of securing titles, their hearts are set on much more than that: love, friendship, and adventure.

The buccaneers tear through Victorian society like a hurricane through a garden party, dazzling and challenging the young dukes and lords and scandalizing their future-in-laws.

Jakeways read the novel and immediately connected with it.

"It was very accessible and it has a brilliant premise as these beautiful, vivacious, effervescent, and exciting American girls turn up in this stuffy, aristocratic, crumbling English world and cause chaos. Very early on, Beth talked about making it feel contemporary," Jakeways says. "Maybe they didn't use exactly the same language, but they spoke in a similarly frank and candid way as we do with our friends and family. They have exactly the same hopes, fears and relationships. They make mistakes. They fall out with their friends, but fundamentally they are always there for each other."

While the premise and the character names are similar — with the exception of 'Theo', who is called 'Ushant' in the book — Wharton's novel serves as a jumping-off point for the series, rather than a faithful adaptation.

"Sadly, Edith died before she finished 'The Buccaneers,' but she helpfully left a synopsis for the last 150 pages of the book," Willis says. "She was a genius and her writing extraordinary, but it felt like an unfinished book, not just in terms of the ending, but also as it was presumably her first pass at the novel so there are loose ends and storylines which aren't complete. However it is her observational humor — not just about society in New York and England and behaviors of that time — but also about the way people think, which makes this book so relevant both then and now."

At the core of the series is an exploration of the nature of female friendships — something Willis described as the "beating heart and DNA of our show."

"It's about sisterhood," Willis continues. "We were determined not to have five different married houses, with them meeting at something, then going back to their private homes. We wanted each episode to be an event, so the girls would always be together."

Jakeways was also excited about bringing the friendships to the TV screen — especially in a costume drama.

"That's because they usually go off very quickly and get married," Jakeways says. "Or they're sitting in their drawing rooms, lusting after Mister So-and-So or Lord Somebody, and then at the end they get married and the show's over and congratulations, happy ever after. You've achieved what you always wanted, which is to get married. But in the case of these girls, what's so appealing is that they were so young and they came over on the promise of adventure and being there with their friends. That's the joy of being that age — and frankly being any age — if you're lucky, with your group of girlfriends. And so, we wanted to keep the sense of that as much as we possibly could."