Mitford Family - The Mitfords in Popular Culture

The Mitfords in Popular Culture

The daughters were the subject of a song, "The Mitford Sisters", by Luke Haines and a musical, The Mitford Girls, by Caryl Brahms and Ned Sherrin.

Nancy Mitford's Love in a Cold Climate, which was based on the family, was serialised by Thames Television in 1980, and by the BBC in 2001.

A fictional family based on the Mitford sisters features prominently in author Jo Walton's novel Ha'penny; Viola Lark, one of the point-of-view characters, is one of the sisters, another is married to Himmler, and a third is a Communist spy.

The fictional "Combe sisters" featured in the BBC 2 series Bellamy's People bear a striking resemblance to the Mitford sisters. Bellamy meets two of the surviving Combe sisters, said to have been notorious in the 1930s and 40s for their extreme political views, now living together in a strained relationship in the dramatically different political realities of 2010. One an avid Fascist and the other a committed Communist, the sisters have hit upon the solution of dividing their stately home down the middle—each converting her side into an homage to her ideology. The sisters were denied a formal education as children, and led an isolated childhood, forming an odd relationship and inventing their own language known as "Languish".

The Mitfords were also referenced in BBC TV's Season 4 of "The Thick of It", broadcast on 22nd September 2012 when Peter Mannion (MP) remarks to Emma Messinger that "You turned into the wrong Mitford Sister" as she steps up to co-present with party spin-doctor, Stuart Pearson.

Unity Mitford appears as a minor character in the last two books of Michelle Cooper's Montmaray Journals trilogy.