This adaptation of Jamila Gavin’s award-winning children’s novel about 18th-century foundlings plays out under an aspic glow. But beneath the handsome, period-drama optics lie ugly Georgian attitudes to poverty and dispossessed children. Orphans are sold for a shilling, babies are buried alive and desperate mothers give up their infants to a criminal posing as a philanthropist’s assistant.
But the potency of this central theme becomes buried itself under a bulging plot and inconsistent pacing. The story revolves around the landed Ashbrook family and interweaves below-stairs drama. Young Alexander Ashbrook (Louisa Binder) wants to pursue a career in music after falling in love with Handel’s compositions but is expected to take over the estate and is disinherited by his father for his disobedience. His fate is tied to the central intrigue of the criminal baby racket, led by the villainous Otis Gardiner (Samuel Oatley).
