A new family are moving into the period drama neighbourhood with aspirations and ambition which could knock the Crawleys of Downton Abbey off the top spot.
The Hardacres is about to premiere on Channel 5.
Commissioned by Paramount and from the production company Playground which was behind All Creatures Great and Small, it is based on CL Skelton’s best-selling novels The Hardacre Family Saga books one and two.
The series chronicles the rags-to-riches tale of a working-class family who manage to escape their precarious livelihoods in a fish dock and acquire a vast country estate in 1890s Yorkshire.
An accident at work on the docks, sees them fall on hard times.
But a new business venture frees them from their humble existence on the North Yorkshire Coast and catapults them into high society.
The books were adapted for the smal screen by writers Amy Roberts and Loren McLaughlan.
McLaughlan said: “Amy and I are both from working-class backgrounds, and it’s really rare to have shows about working-class people actually written by working-class people so that you get that authentic feel.
“So that was something that excited us from the beginning.
“And an opportunity to write a clever working-class family, so the joke isn’t on them, which again, is something that you see in a lot of working-class comedies and dramas.”
Who is in the cast of The Hardacres?
Claire Cooper
Claire Cooper stars as Mary Hardacre, a mother-of-three who when faced with destitution comes up with a novel business idea which sees them make a fortune.
Then actress described her character as “a force of nature”, hewn from Yorkshire’s cutlure and landscape.
“It’s a tougher life there, and she needs that toughness”, she added, “But despite that she’s an optimist, which is what’s wonderful about her.
“She’s not a daydreamer, she’s very much a believer, and that determination really does define her.”
Cooper is the only member of the cast to have come from Yorkshire. The 43-year-old has also appeared in soap opera Hollyoaks and US sci-fi The Peripheral.
Liam McMahon
Liam McMahon plays Sam Hardacre, a family man and dock worker whose family falls on hard times following an accident at work on the docks.
The Northern Irish actor said he felt at home filming in Ireland and embraced the tole of the working class Sam.
“He’s grafter, a hard worker, he exemplifies the behaviour of a hard grafter I think in all areas”, he said, “He’s loyal. He’s dependable. He’s reliable. He’s affable.
“He has the qualities that might immediately make him seem like a leader.”
He has previously starred in the film Hunger and appeared in The Secret and Without You.
Julie Graham
Julie Graham takes on the role of the wily matriach Ma, mother of Mary Hardacre.
“She’s raucous. She’s rude. She’s wild”, said graham of her character in the show, “Her morals are questionable, she’s very outspoken, but she’s also very loyal and loving.”
The 59-year-old from Scotland is best known for her appearances in The Bill, Benidorm, Shetland and Two Doors Down.
Adam Little
Adam Little plays the family’s eldest son Joe, who is the black sheep of the family.
Described by Little as someone with good intentions but who “has a hard way of showing it, always manages to mess it up, get himself in entanglements that he shouldn’t.”
The actor said Joe feels like the “outsider” in the family, who has a sense of loneliness.
He will be a familiar face to audiences from his roles in Years and Years, Acjkley Bridge and Coronation Street.
The remaining cast includes:
- Shannon Lavelle a Liza Hardacre
- Zak Ford-Williams as Harry Hardacre (Better, Bridgerton)
- Taheen Modak as Callum Saunders (The Bay, Two Weeks to Live)
- Holly Sturton as Adella Fitzherbert The School for Good and Evil)
- Cathy Belton as Emma Fitzherbert (Miss Scarlet & The Duke, The Catch, Philomena)
- Owen Roe as George Fitzherbert (Michael Collins, Vikings, Penny Dreadful)
- Sarah Agha as Betsy Temple (The Holy Land And Us: Our Untold Stories, Layla)
- Siobhán O’Kelly as Lena Temple (The Tourist )
- Ingrid Craigie as Mrs Dryden (Blood, Blackshore, You Are Not My Mother)
- Mark Doherty as the butler Beesley (A Film with Me in it, Albert Nobbs)
Where is The Hardacres filmed?
Although set in Yorkshire, much of the filming for this series was done in Ireland.
Dublin and Wicklow on the coast were used as the backdrop for Victorian Yorkshire.
Northern Irish actor Liam McMahon, who plays Sam Hardacre, said: “I got to come home and do this.
“I think that the themes are universal so for it to be filmed in Ireland and not Yorkshire doesn’t really matter.
“Basically at that time in the 1890s everybody had the same struggles going on everywhere.”
While Adam Little, who lays Joe Hardacre, described Dublin as “the best city on earth”.
“Just Ireland as a country itself”, he added, “Wow, what a place.”
When is The Hardacres on?
The Hardacres premiers on Channel 5 on Monday 7 October from 9pm.
There are six episodes in total in this series and the remaining five will air at the same time on subsequent Mondays until 11 November.
The period drama can also be streamed on My5, after each episode has aired.
