Benedict of Bridgerton
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It’s Benedict Day 🎨🎭 As Season 4 of Bridgerton launches this fine Thursday, we are to dive into the story of artistic rebel brother, Benedict. What can we expect?
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A.
Well, we can expect a lot of eyeballs, for one. As of today, Bridgerton remains solidly embedded in Netflix’s Global Top 10 English Shows of all time.
Top 10 Global English Shows of all time. Netflix. January, 2026
i. Wednesday Season 1
ii. Adolescence
iii. Stranger Things 4
iv. Stranger Things 5
v. Wednesday Season 2
vi. Dahmer
vii. Bridgerton Season 1
viii. The Queen’s Gambit
ix. Bridgerton Season 3
x. The Night Agent Season 1
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A mild spoiler alert for those who are coming in fresh to author Julia Quinn’s ‘Bridgerton Collection,’ on which the Regency England Netflix series is based…
Season 4 stars Luke Thompson as Benedict, and Yerin Ha as his ‘downstairs-upstairs’ love interest, Sophie Baek. It’s a story based on the classic tale, ‘Cinderella.’
Given the reams of books, movies, ballets, operas, TV shows it has inspired: who wrote the original Cinderella burnt rags-to-riches fairy tale?
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With its cross-century resonance, it’s not surprising that Cinderella finds its feet in a parade of stories that include…
🪄 A Tang dynasty tale where a young woman drops her shoe as she makes her way back from a royal gala.
🪄 A first century BCE Greek tale where the protagonist catches the attention of a king with her striking sandals.
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🪄 Giambattista Basile’s ‘Il Pentamerone’ where young Zezolla is beloved by her widow Prince father, and blessed with a seemingly doting governess. Convince your father to marry me, the governess whispers to Zezolla, then ‘I shall be mother to you, and you will be as dear to me as the apple of my eye.’
It’s a plan! Zezolla works on her father until he finally relents. But wouldn’t you know: the no-good governess then marries Cinderella’s Dad, and brings six horrid daughters out of hiding. The governess and her ghouls slowly gain their new father’s fickle favour, and push Zezolla into the scullery. They even give Zezolla a new name: ‘Cenerentola’ or ‘little ash girl.’
Thankfully, a fairy gives Zezolla a magic date tree that can beclad her in the most splendid of dresses if she utters the magic spell:
‘My little Date-tree, my golden tree,
With a golden hoe I have hoed thee,
With a golden can I have watered thee,
With a silken cloth I have wiped thee dry,
Now strip thee and dress me speedily.’
Then, like the story we know today: Zezolla finds herself on the way to a royal feast in a coach of gold, catches the eye of a young King, loses a slipper – ‘the prettiest thing that was ever seen’ – and is finally outed as the elusive apple of the king’s eye when the magic slipper and her foot are reunited.
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🪄 Trust the Grimm Brothers to add a little blood, two loyal attack birds, and eye-gouging to the story. Same set-up: feckless father, evil stepmother, sadistic spawn. The magical quick change in this German version comes from a bird in a hazel tree that sprouts on the grave of Cinderella’s mother.
‘Shake and quiver little tree,
Throw gold and silver down to me’.
Fast forward to golden shoe-fitting time. To help her cram her fraud foot in, the stepmother gives her eldest daughter a knife to cut off her toe. For the second daughter, it’s a chunk of her heel she must slice away. Both times, however, two pigeons out the plan.
‘Rook di goo, rook di goo!
There’s blood in the shoe.
The shoe is too tight,
This bride is not right!’
When the bloodied stepsisters dare to attend Cinderella’s wedding, the pigeons peck out their eyes: one each on the way in, the remaining two on the way out.
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Let’s hope there is no rook di goo in Benedict and Sophie’s Cinderella story. Either way, we’ll ready the popcorn and warm the blankets for tonight’s must-see Bridgerton.
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