Faye Marsay plays 20-year-old Nina, freshly arrived from Leicester and hired to mind two boisterous boys for Helena Bonham Carter’s George, editor of a literary journal that looks suspiciously like the London Review of Books. The year is 1982, the postcode is NW1, and every episode runs a trim 28 minutes, just long enough for Nina to post another guileless letter home about poets arguing over bin collections.
Nick Hornby’s scripts lift whole paragraphs from Nina Stibbe’s original dispatches, keeping the book’s tone of deadpan provincial awe intact. Jason Watkins steals scenes as a self-important Scottish poet who treats the kitchen like a green room, while Joshua McGuire hovers as Nunney, the sweetly inept lodger whose romantic prospects hinge on whether he can finish fixing the boiler.
Director S. Clarkson shoots Primrose Hill in warm 16 mm tones, letting Sunday papers, red wine and toddler chaos fill the frame like period props nobody bothered to style. Five Friday-night instalments aired on BBC One between 20 May and 17 June 2016; Netflix picked up UK streaming rights a year later, sending a fresh wave of viewers to Google whether the real Nina ever did learn what aubergines were for.
Production Details
BBC One / 1 Season / 5 Episodes / 2016
Created by: Nick Hornby
Showrunner(s): Lucy Richer, Nina Stibbe, Hakan Kousetta
Writer(s): Nick Hornby
Producer(s): Derrin Schlesinger
Cinematography: Balazs Bolygo
Music: Jack Halama, Ruth Barrett
Main Cast
Faye Marsay as Nina
Helena Bonham Carter as George
Ethan Rouse as Joe
Joshua McGuire as Nunney
Jason Watkins as Malcolm Tanner
Sam Frears as Ray
Harry Webster as Max
Selina Cadell as Ursula Vaughan-Williams
Nina Stibbe as Exam Invigilator
Jonathan Aris as David, 'Floppy'
Alex Beckett as Jamie
Martha Kearney as Radio Interviewer (voice)
