From the Editors
THERE USED TO be an unwritten law of British television that said when times are tough viewers head to David Attenborough documentaries to escape the grim realities of everyday life. But with the rising awareness of the climate crisis, even the natural world isn’t the safe haven it used to be. Time, then, to explore that other traditional bolthole when the real world becomes worrying: the period drama. This Friday, ITV1 provides your passport to another age when it opens the doors to Hotel Portofino. Set on the Italian Riviera during the roaring 20s, Natascha McElhone plays Bella, the English owner of a new hotel, keen to cater to her upper-class guests’ every whim as they indulge themselves on a picturesque stretch of Mediterranean coastline. Everyone is of course beautiful and well…