Wives Like Us

“The Bottoms,” a group of villages in England’s rural Oxfordshire, has become the place to be for the British nouveau-riche, who have snapped up and renovated the area’s moldering country estates. While their husbands earn fabulous salaries at various jobs in London and beyond, the wives of the newly landed gentry have nothing to do. After dropping the children at school, they compete to throw ostentatious luncheons, buy the most expensive clothing and jewelry, and, of course, gossip. The queen of the Bottoms is Tata Hawkins, whose butler, Ian, keeps the household—and the neighborhood—running. Enter Shelby Fairfax, a newly divorced rich American who just inherited a nearby estate. Everybody wants to be the first to host a welcome fête for Shelby, and soon a hilarious mix of misunderstandings, adventures with farm animals, and amorous encounters—both real and imagined—climax at Tata’s 39th birthday party. Annabel Mullion narrates Sykes’s (Party Girls Die in Pearls) hilarious parody of wealthy aimlessness and ostentation, channeling the delightfully awful characters who are the shallowest of the shallow and badly in need of a reality check. Mullion’s varied voices and accents enhance the comedic effect.