Channel 4 has announced casting for its latest historical drama, New Worlds a follow-up to its 2008 BAFTA-nominated series The Devil’s Whore.
Jamie Dornan (The Fall), Freya Mavor (Skins, The White Queen), Alice Englert (Beautiful Creatures) and Joe Dempsie (Southcliffe, Game of Thrones) will star as young idealists during the Restoration period in the four-part series.
Set in the turbulent 1680s, the drama takes place on both sides of the Atlantic, as two young men and two young women commit their lives to a fairer future with blood, passion and urgency.
The series is written and created by Peter Flannery (Our Friends In The North) and Martine Brant and produced by Company Pictures (Skins, Shameless, Elizabeth 1, The White Queen) for Channel 4.
In England, torture, show trails and summary executions are rife as Charles II has betrayed his promise of tolerance and reverted to tyranny.
Audiences rejoin Angelica (Eve Best, Nurse Jackie) from The Devil’s Whore, now Countess of Abingdon, striving to protect her daughter Beth (Mavor) from a country yet again on the brink of chaos.
But when Abe (Dornan) – outlaw and idealist – breaks into Beth’s sheltered world he jolts her into consciousness and asks her if she can standby as the liberties won with her father’s Civil War blood are destroyed?
Meanwhile in New England the colonists struggle throw off the distant but steely control of the English Crown and Hope (Englert) and Ned (Dempsie) find themselves on the brutal frontline.
Channel 4 Head of Drama, Piers Wenger says: “New Worlds is a compelling four part drama capturing the political struggles of the period following the English Civil War both at home and overseas.
“The combination of Peter and Martine’s scripts and Charles Martin’s direction has attracted a diverse and glittering cast and we’re greatly looking forward to seeing their work brought to the screen”
Filming starts in the UK this month for transmission in 2014.