Set in 1620, some 12 years after the first all male settlers established the Jamestown colony in Virginia, the TV series focuses its story on the three women, who have arrived by ship to meet their new ‘husbands’ who have bought them with 150lb of tobacco, and who they have never met.
Verity, played by Niamh Walsh, Jocelyn, played by Naomi Battrick, and Alice, played by Sophie Rundle have all made the perilous journey across the Atlantic to begin new lives with men who are strangers to them, and of whom they know very little. What drives them to take such risks? Is it perhaps the promise of a new life, a new beginning, a slate wiped clean. But from what kind of past are these women running?
But in the case of Alice, she becomes torn between two brothers, Henry, played by Max Beesley, who has ‘purchased her hand’ and Silas, played by Stuart Martin, who meets her off the ship, and with whom she falls in love.
Inspired by the book A Land as God Made it : Jamestown and the birth of America by Dr James Horn, who acted as historical consultant on the series, and made by the same TV company that brought Downton Abbey to life, the series does not shy away from the harsh and often brutal realities of the new colony.
And the series has already been recommissioned for a second season….. Sky senses a hit…..
Have Courage And Be Kind 