An introduction to The Mill, Series 2

30 June 2014

 

“We’ve got these authentic costumes and scripts written in the kind of language that would have been used in Victorian England, but a lot of the issues have modern day parallels. I find that strong resonance very absorbing.”

John Fay, Lead Writer

 “The Mill is that rare thing – a period drama that resonates with 21st century life. It’s a massive pleasure to bring it back. Series Two is the next chapter in the life of Esther Price, our trouble-making mill girl drawn from the Quarry Bank archives.”

Julia Harrington, Commissioning Editor for History & Sophie Gardiner, Commissioning Editor for Drama, Channel 4         

“We are delighted that Channel 4 has decided to recommision The Mill. It was a passion project for DSP from the start and we are enormously grateful that Channel 4 had the vision and courage to back it. The collaboration of the history and drama departments has been inspiring. We are really excited about the rich vein of social history we are tapping into for Series Two.”

Emily Dalton, Managing Director at DSP

Channel 4’s highest-rating drama of 2013, The Mill, returns this summer. The new six-part series covers the period between 1838-1842, focusing on the lives of the mill workers against a backdrop of turbulent social, political and industrial change.

This is a time of the great Chartist rallies and the birth of modern democracy with the movement for the right for working class men to vote sweeping the country. The drama is driven by a spirited young cast who depict a moment in history when the working classes were beginning to demand a say in their own lives. Just four years have passed since the end of first series but now the effects of the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which made a distinction between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ poor, are starting to take hold and desperate economic migrants from the South of England are beginning to arrive at the mill in search of work.

The drama began as a documentary, inspired by the documents from the extensive historical archive at the National Trust’s Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire which contain detailed records on everything from working houses and wages to punishments and pregnancies. After months of in depth research, The Mill was then brought to life as a drama, focusing on Quarry Bank during the 1830s for the first series and covering the period between 1838-1842 for the second.

Through this collaboration between factual and drama creatives, historical characters and events have been combined, elided, borrowed, edited and invented to create a costume drama with something to say to a 21st century audience.

The Mill, Series 2, will broadcast on Channel 4 from Sunday 20th July at 8pm.