About this season
The three-part series centres on the close and often fraught relationship between sisters Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, and Vanessa’s sexually complicated alliance with gay artist Duncan Grant as they, and their group of like-minded friends, navigate their way through love, sex and artistic life through the first half of the 20th century.
Episodes (3)
1. Episode 1
3.0Aired 27 July 2015 • 57 min
Painter Vanessa Stephen and her writer sister Virginia embark on a life of unexpected, post-Victorian freedom in bohemian Bloomsbury. But when they are introduced to flamboyant male admirers, their idyll is rocked and the sisters' relationship is threatened.
2. Episode 2
3.7Aired 3 August 2015 • 57 min
As war descends on Europe, the Bloomsbury friends struggle to build a life outside London. Virginia weds Leonard Woolf and begins a unique, unexpectedly happy marriage, which is in stark contrast to Vanessa and Clive's failing relationship. Vanessa comes to the painful realisation that she is in love with gay Duncan Grant and so begins a life devoted to him, painting and her children.
3. Episode 3
2.0Aired 10 August 2015 • 57 min
Twenty years have passed and it is 1937. Duncan and Vanessa remain at Charleston Farmhouse, painting, living and loving alongside each other. Vanessa’s children Julian, Quentin and Angelica also live with them. Julian is determined to fight against Franco in the Spanish civil war, while Angelica, who remains unaware of her true parentage, goes to London to become an actress.