The series has a group of unmarried men and women, accompanied by their older female chaperones, assuming the identities of Regency-era individuals from the year 1811.
Participants received instruction in the upper class courtship rituals of the time and were charged with seeking out a suitable marriage within the group.
The assigned identities range from titled aristocracy and other wealthy members of society to middle class social climbers.
One woman is assigned the role of the ladies' assistant and is thus excluded, according to the conventions of the times, from many of the social activities in the house.
[1] Many of the costumes had previously been used in the then-recent adaptations of Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Emma and Vanity Fair.