My Brilliant Career review – a joyous heroine lights up this rare and beautiful period drama

Phillipa Northeast is brilliant as a young woman rebelling against society’s expectations in 1890s Australia. It is witty, intelligent and absolutely glorious to watch “I’m hot headed, with a snub nose, and that’s why I prefer a direct gaze.” So speaks Sybylla, the charmingly irrepressible and irrepressibly charming heroine of My Brilliant Career, played utterly convincingly and with vim, vigour and joy by Philippa Northeast in the new adaptation of Miles Franklin’s 1901 Australian classic o...

By Lucy Mangan