Regé-Jean Page and Phoebe Dynevor in ‘Bridgerton’

Watching characters from Bridgerton and other period dramas whirl their prospective love interests around the ballroom floor has inspired fans to take up Regency-era dancing themselves, a UK-based dance teacher reports.

Historical dance teacher Lottie Adcock told BBC Radio York that she has seen a rise in the number of students wanting to learn the style of dances seen in Bridgerton, any number of Jane Austen adaptations and other period dramas set in the Regency era of the early 1800s. She added that the average age of prospective students had also dropped.

Adcock runs a school called Dance the Past and she explained: “Regency dancing is definitely having a resurgence and the people who watched Mr Darcy (played to enormous success by Colin Firth in the BBC TV adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, 1995, and Matthew Macfadyen in the movie of 2005) think, ‘Actually I want to have a go at doing that.’

“Things like Bridgerton have really helped as well.”

The first season of Bridgerton, created by Shonda Rhimes who adapted the series from the books of Julia Quinn, debuted on Netflix on Christmas Day 2020 and swiftly became one of the most watched shows on the platform. Season 2 debuted in March 2022, and the third season is due this coming May.

The Regency era in British history commonly described as spanning 1795 to 1837, during which time King George III was declared unfit to rule, the Regency Act of 1811 was passed, and his eldest son, George, Prince of Wales, was appointed Prince Regent to perform royal functions.