Solly McLeod plays the bastard foundling with a taste for country-squire heirels in ITV’s brisk, four-hour retelling of Henry Fielding’s 1749 novel. Georgia Parris directs Gwyneth Hughes’s script, which trims the picaresque sprawl to a single question: will Tom and Sophia Western (Sophie Wilke) ever share a bed and a bank balance? The answer arrives after 210 minutes, shot across market squares and grand drawing rooms of Northern Ireland, Gracehill standing in for Somerset and Belfast’s Upper Crescent for 18th-century London.
The supporting cast cackles: Hannah Waddingham sweeps through drawing rooms as Lady Bellaston, hair powdered and morals rumpled, while Shirley Henderson and Alan Armstrong bicker as Sophia’s aunt and father, insisting she mary the priggish Blifil. Pearl Mackie’s maid Honour steals every scene she enters, delivering side-eye commentary on the marriage market. Hughes keeps the bawdy jokes intact but sands off the novel’s sexual violence, replacing it with knowing glances and hurried buttons; the result is a polite romp rather than a rowdy romp.
Broadcast began in Denmark on DR in mid-April 2023 before sliding onto PBS on 30 April and ITVX on 11 May. Critics shrugged; Rotten Tomatoes registers 67 per cent and The Guardian dismissed the leads as “a moping wally falling for a dullard,” yet audiences seeking Sunday-night upholstery rather than subversion got exactly what the cover promised: four episodes, four endings, one wedding. The miniseries now sits in the Masterpiece back catalogue between Sanditon and Andrew Davies’s Les Misérables, another handsome, inoffensive heritage checkbox.
Production Details
ITV1 / 1 Season / 4 Episodes / 2023
Created by: Gwyneth Hughes
Showrunner(s): James Gandhi, Polly Hill, Helen Ziegler
Writer(s): Gwyneth Hughes
Producer(s): Benjamin Greenacre
Cinematography: David Mackie
Music: Matthew Slater
Main Cast
Solly McLeod as Tom Jones
Sophie Wilde as Sophia Western
Pearl Mackie as Honour
Hannah Waddingham as Lady Bellaston
Shirley Henderson as Aunt Western
James Wilbraham as William Blifil
Dean Lennox Kelly as Black George Seagrim
Alun Armstrong as Squire Western
Tamzin Merchant as Aunt Harriet
James Fleet as Squire Allworthy
Jacobi Jupe as Young Tom
Kimara-Mai Petit as Young Sophia
