Channel 5 has revealed casting details for a major new Yorkshire-based drama called The Hardacres, which is scheduled to air before the end of the year. The period drama will be made up of six hour-long episodes and is from the production company behind All Creatures Great and Small.
The series is currently being filmed across Dublin and Wicklow, Ireland, and is based on CL Skelton’s best-selling series of novels ‘The Hardacre Saga’. Channel 5 describes the series as 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."
The synopsis adds: "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?"
The series features Claire Cooper and Liam McMahon as loving married couple Mary and Sam Hardacre, who fall on hard times following an accident at work on the docks. Julie Graham stars as Mary’s wily mother, Ma.
Joe, Liza, and Harry, the three children, are played by Adam Little, Shannon Lavelle and Zak Ford-Williams. The family has to think fast with a business venture that will free them from their humble existence on the North Yorkshire Coast.
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The Hardacres have some new neighbours, the Fitzherberts, including Holly Sturton as Adella, Cathy Belton as Emma and Owen Roe as George.
Ingrid Craigie plays housekeeper Mrs Dryden, with Siobhan O’Kelly as Lena, Sarah Agha as Betsy and Taheen Modak as Saunders.
Although no official release date has been announced yet, The Hardacres is planned for transmission in 2024.
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David Stern, Executive Producer and Joint Managing Director of Playground says: “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.
"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.”
C L Skelton's original story is described as a "dramatic family saga" that "follows generations of the Hardacres from Victorian times to the 1950s. Set against the backdrop of major historical events, Hardacre traces the family's humble beginnings to their position of great wealth".
Sam Hardacre makes a tough yet honest living as a fish gutter in the books, but he has "ambitions for a life far removed from the harsh existence on the quays of the north English coast".
Through drive and determination he builds a business empire and his wife, Mary, once a poor street urchin, must learn to adapt to another way of living.
The Hardacres will air on Channel 5 in 2024
