Mrs. Carrington is a webseries I co-wrote with Álex Hernández-Puertas and directed between 2008 and 2010 — which, in internet years, was basically the Cretaceous period. The main character, Leona Carrington, has just inherited one of the largest fortunes in the United States following her husband’s mysterious death, and is forced to navigate a world full of dark secrets, greedy relatives and spectacularly unhinged supporting characters. It’s a comedy-drama shot entirely in black and white, conceived as a loving parody of Old Hollywood soap operas and the telenovelas of the 1940s and 50s — all melodrama, all the time, all the glamour.
The series has a small but genuine place in production history: it was one of the first series ever shot with a DSLR camera — specifically a Nikon D90, which had just launched in 2008 as the first DSLR in history capable of recording video. Nobody really knew yet what you could do with that, and we figured we’d find out. Each episode runs around five minutes, which felt like exactly the right length for something built around escalating absurdity.
The cast is anchored by some of the most remarkable performers in Spanish drag scene: Margott, Tormenta García, La Prohibida and Deborah Ombres make up the core lineup, and Alaska appears as a special guest — which should give you a sense of the register the whole thing is operating in. The series was later edited into a feature-length film cut that screened at LGBT film festivals, and in 2020 the story was expanded and completed in novel form, available here.
The full original episodes are available to stream on YouTube.
Photos from the set
Cast & Crew
Crew
Fidel Lorite — Direction, Production, Editing & Post-production
Álex Hernández-Puertas — Co-writer
Fidel Lorite — Co-writer
Antonio Casas — Light director
Javier Bruque — Sound assistant
Tomás Herráiz — Hair and costumes
Ricardo Pina — Costumes (for La Prohibida)
Cast
Margott — Leona Carrington
Chema Moreno — Martin / Richard Colenster
Francisco Molino — Paolo
Tormenta García — Chumina Stafa
La Prohibida — The Mistress
Deborah Ombres — Norma Widfrey
Alaska — Special guest as La Adivina
Álex Hernández-Puertas — The misterioius voice
Chema Moreno — Martin / Richard Colenster
Jorge Hernández — Lorenzo
Chema Moreno — Martin / Richard Colenster
Pompino — The nurse
Guest cast
Fidel Lorite — TV showrunner
Javier Corral — Detective Alfred Bates
David Eating — Notary
Victor Ventura — Joseph
María Herruzo — Alisson
Where to watch It
- YouTube: Full original episodes are available to stream.
- Film Cut: A feature-length version screened exclusively at LGBT film festivals.
The novel
Expanding and finishing the series plot, the novel was released in 2020. You can read about it here.
