Jamestown

* Sue de Beauvoir
* Sky One

***Jamestown*** is a British historical drama television series created and broadcasted by European TV operator Sky One, produced by Carnival Films and written by Bill Gallagher.

Set in 1619, the series is loosely based on the history of the first English settlers as they establish England's first successful colony in the New World.

## Series Plot

It's one of History's most ambitious enterprises. In 1607 a company of powerful English merchants vowed to establish a permanent base in the New World. Jamestown, Virginia . named after the regning king, James of England - was to become the first successful British settlement in America and it has been described as where the British Empire began. In 1619, a ship containing nearly 100 women in their teens and early 20s made the 3,000-mile journey from England to Virginia.

## Guest Cast and Characters

* Connor Swindells as Fletcher (Season 1)
* Daniel Fearn as Benedict Strawless (Season 1)
* Uncredited actor as Philip Poole (Season 1)
* Uncredited actor as Gabbon (Season 1)
* Simon Meacock as Carrow (Season 2)
* Tomi May as Morrow (Season 2)
* Uncredited actress as Corinna (Season 2)
* Andre Flynn as Simeon Peck (Season 2)

## Episodes

### Season 1

Episode 1Episode 2Episode 3Episode 4Episode 5Episode 6Episode 7Episode 8

### Season 2

Episode 1Episode 2Episode 3Episode 4Episode 5Episode 6Episode 7Episode 8

### Season 3

Episode 1Episode 2Episode 3Episode 4Episode 5Episode 6Episode 7Episode 8

## Development

### Conception

The project for the *Jamestown* series came from producer Sue de Beauvior after learning about a man called Edwin Sandys from the Virginia Company of London who came up with the idea of dispatching maids for marriage, and with the arrival of the women, the settlement started to flourish.

> Sue de Beauvior about Jamestown's history: *They advertised for these mail-order brides and lied on the posters as to what the reality was like out there. They said that everything was hunky dory, a life of promise, whereas in fact it wasn’t at all. They specifically recruited people, using posters and by word of mouth, to get maids of virtue. It was actually considered an honour to be selected as one of the maids to go there to marry**.*
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Although, Season 1 focused on the women arriving to Jamestown, producers and writer have plans to introduce the birth of American slavery and the relationship between Native Americans and English settlers, like Sue herself said: *You also had the House of Burgesses set up in 1619, which was the start of American legislation and then you also had the first Angolans shipped in, which was the start of American slavery. On top of all that there are also the relationships with the American natives. If the series is a success, a later season may well touch on the infamous Jamestown Massacre of 1622. This era is just a gold mine for material.*

### Historical and Cultural Supervising

*Jamestown*’s plot is loosely inspired by *A Land As God Made It: Jamestown and the Birth of America* by historian Dr. James Horn, expert on early USA history, president of the Jamestown Rediscovery Foundation and acted as a historical consultant for the series script.

Season 1 of *Jamestown* focused mainly on the first women that arrived to settlement in 1620 (1619 on the show): three female characters played by Naomi Battrick, Sophie Rundle and Niamh Walsh, who made the perilous crossing to marry men they had never met.

> According to Dr. Horn, these women that arrived to Jamestown were not meek nor downtrodden brides: *These were heroic women, the first British pioneering women taking a huge chance to build a better life. It was a risk for every one of them but also incredibly exciting. They did it out of a sense of adventure more than anything else. They even called themselves 'the adventurers. There was a lot of propaganda in London at the time, Jamestown was sold as a place to prosper and set up a new society. It was seen as a brave new England, a chance to start again. The women they recruited were not as you might think - from prisons or the poorest in society. There was a great emphasis on respectability. They did not want to send women out there who had been, to use a phrase of the time, 'corrupted'. They wanted women who could start families. And for their part they saw it as an incredibly exciting opportunity in a new world. They were extraordinary**.*
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The series’ historical and cultural consultant is Buck Woodard.

### Prodution

*Jamestown* was commissioned for Sky One by Anne Mensah (head of drama), Cameron Roach (commissioning editor) and Adam MacDonald (director of Sky One). It was written and also produced by Bill Gallagher. The series is produced by Carnival Films and distributed by NBC Universal Intl. Distribution. The production of *Jamestown* began during April of 2016.

Gareth Neame, managing director of Carnival Films, said: *This is a unique project: the birth of America through the eyes of the early English settlers. Bill Gallagher has created a show which boasts adventure, community and a remarkable range of characters. Combining life and*
death, power, ambition, love and rivalry, the stakes are high and the drama tantamount.

Mensah said: *The wonderful Bill Gallagher has managed to combine an amazing tale of bravery and adventure with unforgettable characterization and compelling emotion that mark out "Jamestown" as completely unique. The women at the center of our story were choosing a new life in a country from which they could never return -- personal stakes on that level make for simply incredible drama.*

### Building the Set

*Jamestown* series is filmed near Budapest, in Hungary, in order to recreate 17th century Virginia. The set of Jamestown was specially constructed in order to recreate of the original settlement.

When searching for a place to film, the producers considered locations all around the globe. Carnival execute producer Gareth Neame revealed that America was found to be too expensive, while the weather was too unpredictable in Canada and South Africa presented rate challenges.

> Carnival executive Nigel Marchant: *When looking for feasible places to double as Virginia, Hungary didn’t automatically spring to mind, what with it being a landlocked country, However, with its amazing plains, diverse topography, and the hot summers, we soon realised it was a viable option.*
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The set for the Jamestown series was designed by Donal Woods, who also worked in *Downton Abbey*. It was designed and built with complete interiors to complement its exterior spaces and allows the series directors to have greater flexibility in their shot selections.

> According to Gareth Neame: *The whole set has been built using the traditional techniques that English settlers of the early 17th century would have used. It has been constructed as a composite - which means you can follow a character right around the town and in and out of the interiors, through a door and into a house and out again and this gives it a very real, three-dimensional feeling. There is never a cut to a set**.*
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Alongside the actual settlement reconstruction, the series takes the realism of the environment very seriously with mud, living animals (pigs, goats, cows, wolves, etc.) and they even grow their own tobacco on set.

### Score

Jamestown’s soundtrack is composed by the Emmy-winning composer of *Downton Abbey*, John Lunn.

## Reception

Response to the *Jamestown* has been mixed, with various critics highlighting the historical inaccurate of cleaning female characters (while their male counterparts are always dirty) with perfect teeth, hair and clothes. The series has also been criticized for its outspoken and independent female protagonists, but several historians have defended that women in Early Modern period weren’t so meek and submissive as some might think. However, the series has been praised for its representation and casting of Native American actors.

* **Sam Wollaston** from ***The Guardian*** described the series as enjoyable but historic inaccurate: *Jamestown is made by the people who made Downton Abbey, and though the setting is very different, it has a few things in common: sumptuousness, open-ended narrative, the odd curveball. It’s more fun than high culture or history lessons. An expensive soap, in other words**.*
* **Gerard O'Donovan** from the ***Telegraph*** criticized the first episode of the series as “silly” because of the “hunky actors”, “romantic optimism” and the location looking like a “beach resort”. However, he admitted to have been awestruck by the show: *All of which was, strictly speaking, a little silly. But it was also gripping, and the cast’s enthusiasm was so palpable it was impossible to resist. I, for one, want to know more about how these cleverly wrought characters progress with their challenging new lives in the New World**.*
* **Jon O'Brien** from “***Metro.UK***” praised the series for not being a “cozy, comforting Sunday evening fare” and displaying the brutality of Jamestown. He also praised actress Niamh Walsh for stealing the show as Verity Bridges. However, he criticizes Jocelyn Castell as a parody character.
* **Mark Lawson** from ***The Guardian*** criticized the series as historical inaccurate for its “cheeky, feisty and rebellious” protagonists with “laughably liberal values”, who want to sue for rape, slap their male co-starts and joke about their failed sex life.
* Theater critic and historian **Kate Maltby** defended the series historical accuracy and its outspoken and “feisty” female protagonists in response to Mark Lawson's critic. However, she criticizes the brutality of the series on its female characters as “George R.R. Martin school of writing” and the witchcraft trial as “Arthur Miller pastice.
* **Peter Crawley** from ***The Irish Times*** heavily criticized the series as “absurd”, “generic” and “laughable”. He mocked the “freshly and clean” appearance of the female protagonists, which he described to look like they are in a shampoo commercial.

## References

1. ↑ Jamestown: Visiting The Set Of Sky 1's New Period Drama
2. ↑ Jamestown: Everything you need to know about the new Sky One drama series
3. ↑ 'Downton Abbey' creator Carnival Films to produce 'Jamestown'
4. ↑ TV drama Jamestown doubled Hungary for Virginia
5. ↑ Sophie Rundle: how we recreated 17th century Virginia for Jamestown
6. ↑ John Lunn scores "Jamestown" for Sky
7. ↑ Jamestown review – mail-order brides witness the bloody birth of America
8. ↑ Jamestown is a silly but gripping period drama – review
9. ↑ Jamestown episode one review: A cosy costume drama this ain’t
10. ↑ Not in this day and age: when will TV stop horrendously airbrushing history?
11. ↑ Dramas like ‘Jamestown’ do us and history a disservice
12. ↑ Jamestown: absurd, generic and risible show in ‘a hive of men starved of women’