This energetic, sardonic, and richly funny adaptation of Daniel Defoe's classic novel is completely unlike what you might expect from genteel Masterpiece Theatre.

The heroine, Moll Flanders (Alex Kingston), after being born in prison, wends her way through the top and bottom of 18th-century English society, has five husbands (including a roguish highwayman who becomes the love of her life), many lovers (male and female), travels to America and back again, and in general discovers all that is cruel and sweet in life.