Ever since Garrow’s Law finished, I have been waiting for another period drama set in Georgian times to arrive on our screens – and now, lo and behold, two have turned up at once.
Jimmy McGovern has created Banished, a seven-part drama currently on BBC 2; while on BBC 1, we are being treated to a remake of a golden oldie from 1975. Yes, Poldark is back on Sunday nights.
What marks Banished out as slightly different is the location of the story. It’s a piece of Georgian England transplanted to the other side of the world; the story of the first penal colony established in Australia in 1788. A very primitive community, it would appear to have been, judging by the look of this particular production; more of a camp than a village or town; pretty spartan conditions for both convicts and overseers alike.
Some people have taken exception to the way Tommy Barrett (Julian Rhind-Tutt) was allowed to escape hanging in the faraway settlement in episode one – his captors had a deeply religious moment as Barrett reminded them of a Christ-like figure, and ultimately they relented, feeling that the execution was as cruel and unjust as the crucifixion. And so it was cancelled. It might appear a little unlikely to some in our modern, secular world for characters to behave in this way – but I was carried along with this particular turn of events and accepted it. It seemed that people then, with very different, much more intense, Christian convictions, might well react as these characters did. Far from being cheesy melodrama, I felt it was a strong, if unexpected turn of events – and that unexpected things sometimes happen in the real world. Four thousand Zulus letting off fewer than 200 British infantrymen at Rorke’s Drift because the latter showed a good fighting spirit – sounds like cheesy melodrama. But it really happened.
They are very much cut off from the rest of the world in Banished, which might also affect their behaviour – “a strip of sand between the boiling blue ocean and the deep, dark bush” is how McGovern sums up his basic canvass.
Poldark, on the other hand, has a style of direction that goes all out for the Western look (albeit the west of England): the sweeping grandeur of Bodmin Moor plus the Cornish coast. It features lots of nice long shots of Ross Poldark riding at full gallop across this scenery, dismounting at the family home and then doing a heroic walk in big, black riding boots. I understand large numbers of the female audience are quite taken with him.
For the gents, there is the lovely Elinor Tomlinson as Demelza. With regard to servants, two other characters and the actors who play them deserve a mention – Phil Davis and Beatie Edney as Jud and Prudie – are splendid.
Back in New South Wales, we now have a man learning to read in the hope of bettering himself – and all the while he carries a letter around with him from his wife, telling him that she loves another. So the new skill, once he acquires it, will probably crush him rather than help him. That is a turn of the plot of which Dickens would have been proud.
Meanwhile, Poldark has reopened his mine in order to help the Cornish locals and “toils alongside them” like a good upper-class hero should.
So if this is your thing, you can take your choice between the taut, oppressive Banished or the vivid and energetic Poldark. I must be some sort of Georgian junkie as I’m watching and enjoying both.
I seem to remember that Poldark falls foul of the law at some point, as his saga unfolds. Well, he had better watch himself – or else he might end up being transported to the first penal colony in Australia. And he wouldn’t want to go there, if Banished is anything to go by.