The production is a major six part period drama for Channel 5 from the makers of All Creatures Great and Small.
Currently filming on location in Dublin and Wicklow, Ireland, the new series is based on CL Skelton’s best-selling series of novels ‘The Hardacre Saga’. The novels are the number 1 bestseller in the Amazon Family Saga Kindle charts in the UK, US and Australia and Top 15 Bestseller across all Amazon Kindle titles in the US and UK. Global partners Banijay Rights will handle international distribution for the series.
The Hardacres is a sweeping rags to riches story that follows the lives, loves and fortunes of the working class Hardacre family as they move from a grimy fish dock to a vast country estate in 1890’s Yorkshire. A bold, gutsy ensemble family drama full of heart, The Hardacres places an ordinary family in an extraordinary position and explores the age-old question – can money ever buy true happiness?
David Stern, Executive Producer and Joint Managing Director of Playground:
“We’re incredibly excited to have found a cast that embodies and enhances the spirit, humour and humanity that leaps off the page in both the original novels and the brilliant scripts by Amy, Loren, Liz and Emma. Audiences will undoubtedly fall in love with our fantastic group of actors, made up of both seasoned talent and exciting new faces, as they bring this spirited and sweeping rags to riches saga to life on screen.”
The Hardacre family consists of Claire Cooper and Liam McMahon as a loving married couple Mary and Sam Hardacre, who land on hard times following an accident at work on the docks, which leaves them unemployed and broke.
Alongside, Julie Graham, starring as Mary’s wily mother, Ma, and their three kids, Joe, Liza, and Harry, played by Adam Little, newcomer Shannon Lavelle and Zak Ford-Williams the family band together to think fast with a business venture that will free them from their humble existence on the North Yorkshire Coast and catapult them into high society.
Also joining the series are Holly Sturton as Adella, Cathy Belton as Emma and Owen Roe as George, making up the well-to-do Fitzherbert Family and new neighbours of The Hardacres. Ingrid Craigie is housekeeper Mrs Dryden, with Siobhan O’Kelly as Lena, Sarah Agha as Betsy and Taheen Modak as Saunders.
The Hardacres has been created for television by Amy Roberts and Loren McLaughlan who will serve as Lead Writers and Executive Producers. They are joined by Emma Reeves who will write episode three, and Liz Lake who will write episode four.
The Hardacres is planned for transmission in 2024.
