Channel 4’s four-part follow-up to The Devil’s Whore lands in 1680s England and Massachusetts, where idealistic outlaw Jamie Dornan’s Abe Goffe plots a republic while courting Freya Mavor’s Beth Fanshawe, daughter of Eve Best’s now-mature Angelica. Across the Atlantic, Joe Dempsie’s Ned and Alice Englert’s Hope endure puritan repression, the three storylines stitched together by writers Peter Flannery and Martine Brant to illustrate unfinished revolutionary fervour.
Critics pelted the dialogue: Stuart Jeffries in The Guardian called it “laughably expository” and Patrick Kevin Day warned “don’t expect to be compelled to finish”, though both conceded the production design and costumed cast photograph handsomely. Ellen E. Jones noted the new young ensemble never matched the predecessor’s heavyweight turns from Peter Capaldi and Michael Fassbender, while David Hinckley allowed that once a viewer “sorts out what’s going on, the action is lively”.
Shot in the Forest of Dean, the serial began on 1 April 2014 and vanished after 22 April, leaving the republic still unbuilt and the colony’s dissenters hanging. Company Pictures has released no continuation, and Channel 4 lists the drama as ended.
Production Details
Channel 4 / 1 Season / 4 Episodes / 2014
Created by: Martine Brant, Peter Flannery
Showrunner(s): Peter Flannery, John Yorke, Marcel Golding
Writer(s): Martine Brant, Peter Flannery
Producer(s): Johann Knobel
Cinematography: David Raedeker
Music: Harry Escott
Main Cast
Jamie Dornan as Abe Goffe
Freya Mavor as Beth Fanshawe
Joe Dempsie as Ned
Holli Dempsey as Agnes
Jeremy Northam as Charles II
Alice Englert as Hope
Michael Maloney as Hardwick
Pip Carter as Judge Jeffreys
Phil Cheadle as Ralph
Michael McElhatton as John Hawkins
Amy Marston as Martha Hawkins
Tom Payne as Monmouth
