The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister

The Secret Diaries of Miss Anne Lister was a one-off BBC drama that aired in May 2010. The title character was a Victorian industrialist and businesswoman and is considered to be the first modern lesbian. The programme mostly details her affair with her relationship with her girlfriend, Mariana and her ex/best friend, Tib. Things don't get off to a good start, since after the exposition the plot the sucker punches Anne with the announcement of Mariana's engagement to Charles, an older wealthy landowner.


 * Bifauxnen: Anne.
 * Compressed Adaptation: The scriptwriter commented that to fully adapt all of Anne's diaries to TV would require a ten episode series, but the commission was only for ninety minutes.
 * Death of the Hypotenuse: Anne and Mariana eagerly await the death of Charles so that they can be together.
 * Friends with Benefits: Anne and Tib's relationship develops into this, although Tib is tired of being relegated to Just Friends.
 * Innocent Cohabitation: Anne plans to invoke this so that she and Mariana can live together.
 * Last Girl Wins:
 * Lipstick Lesbian: Mariana.
 * My Own Private I Do:
 * One Steve Limit: Averted with Anne and Ann, since Real Life Wrote The Plot, although the different spellings make it a little easier to distinguish between the two.
 * Unlucky Childhood Friend: Tib.
 * So Happy Together: Unusually, they manage to do this twice. First with the very start of the programme and again before the Second Act Breakup.
 * What Could Have Been: