PBS’s Masterpiece has been home to many literary adaptations over its long run, including 1976’s I, Claudius and the 1990s series Jeeves and Wooster. Next month, it will air a reboot of the much-loved TV series All Creatures Great and Small, based on the work of James Herriot, as well as another notable presentation on Jan. 31: The Long Song, a three-part miniseries based on the Kirkus-starred 2010 historical novel by Andrea Levy and starring Tamara Lawrance, Hayley Atwell, and Jack Lowden.
The novel, set in 19th-century Jamaica, tells the story of an enslaved woman named July who was taken away from her enslaved mother at a young age to be a housemaid for Caroline Mortimer, the plantation’s widowed owner. In 1838, slavery is finally outlawed in Jamaica, but July’s situation changes little, at first. Things become even more complicated when a new, progressive overseer named Robert Goodwin arrives at the plantation, falls in love with July, and marries Caroline.
Lawrance, who plays July, previously appeared in a 2017 film adaptation Ian McEwan’s 2007 novel, On Chesil Beach. Atwell plays Caroline, and she’s best known for playing SHIELD agent Peggy Carter in multiple films and TV shows in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; she also recently starred in a 2017 Starz/BBC miniseries of E.M. Forster’s 1910 classic, Howards End. Lowden, who portrays Robert, co-starred in the 2018 film Mary Queen of Scots, based on John Guy’s 2004 biography, Queen of Scots: The True Life of Mary Stuart.
The new miniseries was written by Sarah Williams, who previously adapted Levy’s Kirkus-starred 2005 novel, Small Island, as a two-part BBC series in 2009.
David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.
