Bafta-nominated The Durrells, Spooks and The Missing
Amidst all the hoo-ha about The Night Manager, The Missing and Line of Duty being largely ignored in this year’s Bafta award nominations, one mighty feat has been overlooked – that an ITV Sunday evening family show – ostensibly a cosily escapist costume drama – should find itself on the shortlist for best TV drama.
The Durrells is loosely based on naturalist Gerald Durrell’s best-selling memoires of his family’s four-year stint on pre-war Corfu, My Family and Other Animals – his widowed mother Louisa having upped sticks from genteel Bournemouth, taking her daughter and three wayward sons to the Greek island.
And it’s Louisa, rather than her more famous offspring, Gerald and author Lawrence Durrell, who is the central protagonist of the ITV drama – juggling her eternally squabbling children and their quixotic interests (animals, guns, novel-writing) along with the need to grub a living from this beautiful but peasant-poor corner of the Mediterranean.
The part of Louisa was a god-send for actress Keeley Hawes, coming off the back of a run of emotionally draining roles – as the demented DI Lindsay Denton in two series of Line of Duty, a murder victim in The Tunnel, and in the latest harrowing series of The Missing, as a grief-stricken mother.
The Durrells’ returns to ITV at 8pm on Sunday 23 April
No comments:
Post a Comment