Now Eurovision is over for another year, you may well be looking for a new drama to snuggle down with on a Sunday evening. Well from this weekend (Sunday, May 14), the BBC has just the thing.
Ten Pound Poms is the new original drama series created by BAFTA-winning Danny Brocklehurst, the brains behind Sky Comedy Brassic and BBC drama Ordinary Lies and produced by Eleven, the team behind the award-winning Sex Education.
The six-part series follows a group of Brits as they leave dreary post-war Britain in 1956 to embark on a life-altering adventure on the other side of the world. For only a tenner, they have been promised a better house, better job prospects and a better quality of life by the sea in sun-soaked Australia.
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But life down under isn’t exactly the idyllic dream the new arrivals have been promised. Struggling with their new identity as immigrants, we follow their triumphs and pitfalls as they adapt to a new life in a new country far from Britain and familiarity.
At the heart of the drama are Annie and Terry Roberts. They try to make the best of the situation for their family, but the poor living conditions at the hostel and local attitudes towards immigrants test them in ways they couldn’t have imagined. They aren’t the only people at the hostel avoiding the truth.
Kate is a young nurse who arrives without her fiancé and will do whatever it takes to try and rewrite her devastating past. Bill has lost his family business back home and is so desperate to prove he’s living the Australian dream that he’ll stop at nothing in order to get a lifestyle he can’t sustain.
And Teenager Stevie comes from a troubled background and hopes to use this new adventure to escape his oppressive father. Meanwhile, Ron, an indigenous Australian war veteran, struggles with feeling like an outsider in his own country.
The series features a star-studded cast with Greater Manchester's very own Michelle Keegan who takes on the role of Kate, a nurse who has left the UK to go to Australia for a very different reason from the rest of the characters.
Stockport-born Michelle, 35, shot to fame playing Tina McIntyre in Coronation Street from 2008 to 2013. Since then, fans have seen Michelle star in multiple shows such as Our Girl as Sergeant Georgie Lane, ITV's Tina and Bobby as Tina Moore, and Erin Croft in Brassic.
Faye Marsay will take on the role of Annie in Ten Pound Poms, a 1950s housewife in post-war Northern England, married to Terry. Fans will likely recognise the actress from Game of Thrones, in which she played The Waif in the fifth and sixth seasons.
Her other notable roles include Anne Neville in The White Queen, the recurring character Candice in Fresh Meat, Steph in the film Pride, Amy in Need for Speed (2015) and more recently Vel Sartha in Star Wars' Disney+ live action series, Andor.
Playing Terry is Warren Brown. Viewers will most likely recognise the Warrington-born actor from a few different roles, including playing Donny Maguire in Shameless, Andy Holt in Hollyoaks, and DS Justin Ripley in the BBC crime drama Luther.
More recently, Warren appeared in BBC's The Responder, a British police drama series set in Liverpool, as Raymond Mullen, and in ITV's Trigger Point, a crime thriller series as Karl Maguire.
Also, Declan Coyle (The Family Law) will play Stevie and Rob Collins (Cleverman) plays Ron, an Indigenous Australian war veteran, who struggles with feeling like an outsider in his own country.
And the cast is completed by Australian stars, Hattie Hook (Savage River) who plays Pattie, Finn Treacy (The Portable Door) as Peter, David Field (Chopper) as Dean, Sophie Gregg (Devil's Dust) as Tina, Cheree Cassidy (Total Control) as Marlene and Rob Collins (Cleverman) as Ron.
Ten Pound Poms will begin on BBC One on Sunday, May 14, at 9pm, with new episodes airing each Sunday for six weeks. But for those who like to binge their TV series, all episodes will be available on BBC iPlayer as a box set after the first episode airs.
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