“We threw the rule book away”: Will Hughes-Jones on creating the sets for Prime Video’s My Lady Jane

MUMBAI: My Lady Jane, the quick-witted romantic series by Prime Video, is riding high on anticipation as it’s set in an alt-fantasy Tudor world. Instead of focusing on the brief reign of the young Tudor as the Queen of England and her subsequent beheading in 1553, the series explores how history should have unfolded, where the damsel in distress, in fact, saves herself. My Lady Jane is an epic tale of true love and high adventure set in an alt-universe of action, history, fantasy, comedy, and steamy romance. To bring the historical-fictional world to life, Production Designer Will Hughes-Jones was quite particular about the detailing, as the locations were a blend of real stately homes and elaborate sets built from scratch. 

Shedding some light on the historical accuracy in set design, Hughes-Jones says, “We blur the lines so much that people don’t notice when they’re going from location onto set.” He further add, “After two years of doing Bridgerton, where we threw the rule book away, it was quite easy to do. The humor of the My Lady Jane script bled through to the making of the project. People who write scripts like that have a sense of humor; they take life very seriously without taking it too seriously. My Lady Jane was a great show to do because we had so much fun on it. There was a lot of time when we looked at a scene, and then we embellished them with some pretty bonkers things, but we also did things that were more historically accurate than you would necessarily think. For example, for the tapestries we made sure all of the colors were really punchy and bright as they would have been at that time. When you look at tapestries now, they’re muted and soft because they’ve faded with time.”

Inspired by the best-selling eponymous book series, My Lady Jane is a radical retelling of English royal history. The eight-episode series is executively produced by Gemma Burgess and Meredith Glynn, who also serve as the showrunners. My Lady Jane boasts a dynamic star cast, including Emily Bader, Edward Bluemel, Jordan Peters, Dominic Cooper, Anna Chancellor, Rob Brydon, and Jim Broadbent. The series will premiere exclusively on Prime Video on June 27.