The effing Fulfords to return in BBC Three's Life is Toff

The aristocratic Fulford family are returning to television a decade after a documentary about them made a star of their foul-mouthed father.

Cameras will follow the lives of the four siblings - Arthur, Matilda, Humphrey and Edmund - at their 3,000-acre Great Fulford estate in rural Devon.

The six-part BBC3 show, called Life Is Toff, is described as the story of four young people 'struggling with the same problems, insecurities and rites of passage that we all confront, but with the weight of 800 years of history and tradition bearing down on them'.

BBC Three editor Sam Bickley said: "I am really excited to announce a brand-new factual entertainment series about the four Fulford children as the eldest son takes up the reins of the family estate in Devon."

Their father Francis became an overnight star after the family featured in a Channel 4 documentary in 2004 called The F****ing Fulfords.

That showed the almost penniless aristocrats squabbling at home as Francis dreamt up different schemes in an attempt to restore the family fortune and repair their crumbling estate.

In one scene he led a group of tourists on a tour of their stately home, informing them about one of his ancestors who commanded a fleet of ships against the French, killing 5,000 of them, which he described as 'a satisfactory result all round'.

 

Patrick McLennan

Patrick McLennan is a London-based journalist and documentary maker who has worked as a writer, sub-editor, digital editor and TV producer in the UK and New Zealand. His CV includes spells as a news producer at the BBC and TVNZ, as well as web editor for Time Inc UK. He has produced TV news and entertainment features on personalities as diverse as Nick Cave, Tom Hardy, Clive James, Jodie Marsh and Kevin Bacon and he co-produced and directed The Ponds, which has screened in UK cinemas, BBC Four and is currently available on Netflix. 


An entertainment writer with a diverse taste in TV and film, he lists Seinfeld, The Sopranos, The Chase, The Thick of It and Detectorists among his favourite shows, but steers well clear of most sci-fi.